What Is It Like To Homeschool?

Do you ever wonder what it's like to homeschool? Or are you already a homeschooler, but you're looking for new ideas?

I've been homeschooling my son for the past 7 1/2 years. I'm often asked by friends, "What is it like to homeschoool?" So, not to long ago, I created a mini website / blog on Squidoo called, Ever Wonder What It's Like To Homeschool? On that page, I try to answer that question by describing a typical day of homeschooling at our house. I include information about the types of curriculum we use, as well as our overall style.

By the way, I'm happy to report that Ever Wonder What It's Like To Homeschool? recently won a special honor! You can read more about that on the Giant Squid Community Showcase.

Our Frog Eggs Are Hatching Into Tadpoles!

Two days ago, we brought home some frog eggs from our homeschool group co-op. When we looked into the container of pond water and frog eggs today, we could see some very tiny tadpoles swimming around! The larger ones are about four millimeters long.

Here's one, but this is greatly enlarged:



When I took a photo of the tadpoles and enlarged it on my computer, I could see many more tiny creatures swimming around in the water. These "bugs" just look like little black flecks to the naked eye, but resemble very tiny tadpoles when the image is enlarged. I wish I could tell you exactly what they are, but I'm not sure. They may be the very tiniest of mosquito larva. Mosquito larva tend to swim on the surface of the water, diving down into the water to escape danger, and then kind of wiggling back up in a jerky type manner. The mosquito larva I have seen before have long skinny bodies and were larger than these "bugs." Yet there are 4 different stages of mosquito larva. If you'd like to know more about mosquito larva, here is a good site about mosquitos.

You can see some of these very tiny creatures in this image below, which by the way is blown up exactly the same amount as the image above. (They are actually the same photo, just cropped in different places.)



I'll keep you updated with more photos as the tadpoles continue to grow and change into frogs! (Here's my next blog on our tadpoles! Our Tadpoles Are Really Growing!)

P.S. Watching the frog life cycle is part of the Real Science 4 Kids curriculum we are using this year.

Painted Lady Butterflies

A few weeks ago, my son brought home two Painted Lady Caterpillars from his homeschool co-op. Someone in our co-op had purchased the caterpillars for the kids so that we could all watch the miracle of metamorphosis unfold before our eyes. It truly was an amazing experience!

Our Painted Lady Caterpillars each came in a little cup with all the food they would need for their time as caterpillars. After a few days, they both crawled to the top of their cups and attached themselves in a J shape, hanging upside down from their tails, from the lid of the cup. Caterpillars are the larva stage of a butterfly or moth. The next stage differs though. A moth becomes a cocoon and a butterfly becomes a chrysalis. Our Painted Lady caterpillars were well on their way to becoming chrysalises!

A few hours after hanging upside down, they molted one last time, and the new skin underneath hardened into a chrysalis shell. They stayed like that for 9 days. On that ninth day, right before our eyes, the shell of the chrysalis opened and out came a Painted Lady Butterfly. It wasn't a lengthy process at all! In fact, it happened within just a minute or two!

My son and I learned a great deal about Painted Lady Butterflies while raising and releasing our two. For example, did you know butterflies are solar powered, and need a little direct sunlight warming their wings in order to fly?

I've created a web page that tells all about our experiences with the butterflies, and also goes more into depth regarding the life cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly. It also includes several photos that we took of our Painted Lady Butterflies!
Painted Lady Butterflies