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Celebrating A New Year

A new school year that is. Today we celebrated the start of the new homeschool year with a trip to the Butterfly Pavilion at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Our science curriculum for this year begins with a unit on butterflies. As we have yet to see any butterflies, aside from Cabbage Whites, in our butterfly garden, we decided a trip to this new exhibit would be a special way to kick-off the school year. We toured the Pavilion and the accompanying exhibit on the co-evolution of plants and butterflies, as well as the Insect Zoo exhibit.

Connor studies a butterfly up close.

The Pavilion houses close to 500 butterflies of over 30 varieties from around the world. The butterflies fly free as you walk through, landing on the plants, on shoulders, and on heads; both Connor and I had butterflies land on our heads. The boys were able to watch as the butterflies uncurled their probiscises to drink the nectar from pieces of orange, grapefruit, watermelon, and rotten bananas and to see a Monarch butterfly emerge from its chrysalis and uncurl its wings.

Two Owl Butterflies drinking the nectar from a slice of watermelon.

The boys completed a color-as-you-go scavenger hunt as we toured the exhibits, coloring in spaces as they spotted 2 flying Morphos, 3 Owl butterflies, rotten bananas, a red flower, a yellow flower, and many more. Although this scavenger hunt was not designed specifically for the Butterfly Pavilion at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Ryan and Connor were able to fill in most of the spaces as we walked through the Pavilion and the Insect Zoo.

Taking a moment to complete the color-as-you-go scavenger hunt.

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