The Preschool Homeschool

Well the kids went on another outside adventure and found a bunch of black swallowtail caterpillars in our parsley patch. I have an herb garden with parsley, basil, thyme, oregano and, in the spring, strawberries. If you don’t have an herb garden, you should plant one. Even if you don’t use the herbs in your cooking, it’s a great way to attract butterflies, bees, caterpillars and birds. It makes your backyard a nature learning center for your kids. The caterpillars are attracted to our herb garden because one of their favorite foods is parsley. In the spring and summer we get plenty of bees, hummingbirds, and other birds that we have to chase away from the strawberries. We also get lots of butterflies around the lavendar.

It’s not hard to start an herb garden. If you don’t want to grow the herbs from seed, you can buy established herbs from the store. For as little as 20.00 you can get basil, oregano, parsley, lavendar, thymes and other fragrant herbs. Pick a corner of your yard, put up a rock or plastic edging border and plant your herbs. This is a great spring activity for your preschoolers, who are probably dying to get outside after the winter. Our garden also hosts a bird bath, some marigolds, a rose of sharon tree and some blazing liatris. And it’s really not all that big. You can see a picture of our herb garden here.

Here’s a pic of our newest nature residents:

We have some neat spiders around our house. While my husband’s first inclination is to knock down their web and get rid of them, I’ve convinced him that watching them is much more fun. We now officially have 3 spiders that we’ve invited with the traditional “mi casa es su casa” line. One in the back and two in the front.

The one in the back is huge. It has huge legs, a huge body and a huge web. It’s the neatest one to watch. We’re not sure what type of spiders they are, because I don’t want to get too close, just in case. The big one could probably take out an eye.

The smaller ones have both made webs in the windows next to our front door. This is nice because we can observe her without actually having to go outside and disturb her. I say her because they both have egg sacs. One has 3 egg sacs, of which 2 have already hatched. The other only has 1 egg sac, but I haven’t seen any baby spiders yet.

This is a great homeschooling activity for kids of all ages. We have taken to observing the spiders daily and seeing how things change. Yesterday, one egg sac was covered in babies, which my daughter found thrilling. These spiders are a great opportunity to learn a little more about spiders. What they do, why they’re beneficial, and why it’s not necessary to squash every spider you see. If you haven’t taken to looking around outside your home for a bug or arachnid you can adopt, take your preschooler on an adventure. Look for a spider, ant hill, lizard or anything else that’s native to your area. Observe them on a daily basis to see how they live and change. Read books, color pictures, tell stories and take pictures. There’s no better way to learn about an animal than to be able to relate what you hear and see in books to a real life specimen.

Here’s a couple pics of our resident spiders. The big one is curled up, he’s actually much larger.  And after checking on them real quick while writing this, my daughter noticed that the big spider was off somewhere doing something, but that our mama spiders had good news. The mama with one egg sac had her babies and is working on another sac, while fertile myrtle in the other window now has four egg sacs and a bunch of babies.

This is our big one-he’s curled up though.

Look closely and you can see the babies!