anise swallowtail!

   it was only about a week from the beginning of chrysalis formation to emergence of a butterfly, which took us all by surprise.  we hypothesized that although it was cooler by day in our home, it was warmer by night, and the total average temperature was higher, leading to an accelerated metamorphosis.  when we woke up and checked the chrysalis, i was worried--it had turned black!  within the hour the butterfly had emerged, however, making me realize that the color was due to the translucent chrysalis showing the black wings inside.  the new creature evoked the same feelings in me that my newborns did--it seemed so fragile, crumpled, inward-turned, but with the effortless awe-inspiring beauty that so often comes from a creature whose potential is so different, grander, more complicated, than its present form.  we watched transfixed as it pumped fluid into its wings, letting the air dry its bunchy form into something much more elegant and graceful.  as this was happening, r got out her hs journal and sketched what she was seeing, practicing her writing too.we took it outside--i was already late for work since it emerged as we were walking out the door--and watched its last readying, steadying moments before takeoff.

      

busy, busy week for a hard-working mama

makes me so happy we have such a great library!  we go to the library weekly anyway, but this week was heavier on HS stuff and lighter on entertainment, because i needed materials that were ready to teach, right out of the box, so to speak.  we got some great stuff!  first, because they are the BEST of both worlds (books read aloud to my kid, but not by me, which means i can do something else for a time) AUDIO BOOKS!  this wek the two main ones are juliet dove: queen of love (a magic shop series book) and two new magic treehouse books.  both these are really engaging series that have tons of allusions regarding history.  these two series in particular are always much more than "just" a story, leading my kids to ask questions, look for other books about a time period, and think harder about the themes within.  i was especially thrilled that "juliet dove" had many references to greek mythology, leading us to our mythic tarot deck, which R uses to entice me to tell her stories from greek mythology.  this led us to a book about greek myth monsters though i still need to preview that one as i'm not sure it's appropriate.other books r chose included fashion in history, women pirates, and some books about animals, as usual.  and some fiction, of course, and a couple of DVDs just for fun.

moving right along--creating our cocoon

the caterpillar promptly quit eating fennel and attached his tail to a stem. we were fascinated to see it connected to said stem by two tiny fragile silken strands. if you blow on it, it sways...makes you wonder how they make it in a thunderstorm, in nature! then, today, it has begun to harden and transform. we will learn today *how* the change to its formerly soft body is happening, since the caterpillar itself is not spinning a cocoon per se--its body is simply changing before our very eyes into a solid green mass. muy, muy interesante!


metaphorically minded as i am, i can't help but see this experience as a kind of natural snapshot of what we are doing. the most common criticism of homeschooling, after all, especially the way we want to do it--i.e., NOT signing our kids up for umpteen supplementary things and shuttling them all over, and instead making our life at home as edifying as possible, mostly--is that children are not properly socialized. we are in a cocoon of our own making, here at home, and i have to hope we have what we need within to make this turn out right. and folks like us don't see that as a bad thing, the beauty of a cocoon being that what any creature needs to grow does come mostly from within and from its immediate surroundings.

so there you have it--i've outed myself already, two days in, as a luddite (though this blog should allay that fear) or a conservative (i'm actually left of jesus, but very interested in doing the right thing) or anti-modernity (and one out of three isn't that bad, i guess). in reality, what spurs my desire to homeschool them like this, in our cocoon, is this: i know how brief the metamorphosis from baby to adult really is, watching my 15 year old struggle against anything, friend or foe, that seeks to limit his flight. like modest mouse says, we've got just one chance, one chance/to get everything right....and if we're lucky we might.

school starts tomorrow

we had a not-so-stellar experience at our local public school last year, and we're committed to a year of homeschooling. i hope this blog serves as a kind of scrapbook for our kids that documents what we did, as well as a catalyst that inspires me to come up with amazing stuff on a regular basis for my kids to do--because i'm more likely to write about it, if it's cool, and nothing satisfies like a good positive feedback loop.

tomorrow we ease in slow with lowly caterpillar. it's a type of swallowtail larvae that L found at his work, on a fennel plant. we are gong to learn everything we can about it, get some good stuff in the sketchbook, and observe its metamorphosis over the next several weeks.