Science Lab...in our own home

Maybe your yard is like mine... full of the empty "shells" of Cicadas. My daughters have been finding, and collecting them, by the dozens. By the buckets full. In the grass. On the trunk of the tree. Still clinging to the leaves of a limb. They were thrilled to hear about the process of the cicada...and see the end result. The empty shell.

Until Selah yelled, "This one is MOVING!" Sweet! She had found one that was yet to shed it's shell! Telling her to keep an eye on it, I ran inside and got a pitcher. We had high hopes of being able to watch the adult cicada emerge from the larvae shell. :)

But it wasn't to be. The next morning, the adult cicada was there to greet us. Bum-mer.
Fast forward a few days. The girls are outside collecting more of the cicada shells, when Selah yells "Another one!!" *shrug* Okay, why not? So we get the pitcher-turned-aquarium, set up home for the bug, and bring it inside. They name it "Shiny". :) We figure, if nothing else, the girl just get the before-and-after-cicada-nature study again. No biggie.

But 15 minutes after the girls were down for the night, I happened to walk through the room where Shiny was setting up house. And Thank you Jesus! He was starting to wriggle his way out!! I sprinted upstairs, threw open the door to the girl's bedroom, and ran over to the bunk bed. They were all over it! We all ran down the stairs to become Shiny's own personal Welcoming Committee.

Had I looked at the bug 5 minutes later, it would have been too late. There wouldn't have been enough time. Thanks, Lord! Kind of sweet of you to provide us with a hands-on Science lesson, since we JUST started Homeschooling.

"Shiny" makes a break for it. The girls are fascinated!! ...as are Jet and I, since We've never seen this either!
"It fell! He just fell out!" The little guy is just laying there. THIS must be the reason why they instinctively know to come out at night. Lowers their chances of being bird feed. Cle-ver.
The girls are firing questions left and right about the process. We got to watch as the wings unfurled. And as the legs started to work. They didn't want to go back to bed. Shocker. :)
I'm LOVING that they got to see this!

AND just yesterday, my oldest nephew found a butterfly cocoon!! I've been WANTING to find one of those for the girls. I even went so far as to try and see if there was some place where I could order one off the Internet. No luck. But thanks to my nephew's keen observational skills as he was weeding Grandma's flower beds...we have one! Free of charge. Thanks, Justin!!

Today we'll set that up in a real aquarium...hopeful that we'll be able to watch the butterfly emerge, just as we did the cicada.

If this is the way that God's going to provide for us during our Homeschooling years...there's no telling the adventure we'll get to have!