An Unruly Garden

Spring Book 2

Pie Crust, Quiche, Shoofly Pie

Become a Lepidopterist, Moth or Butterfly, Make a Butterfly Net,

Identifying Butterflies, Raising Caterpillars

Impressionist Cherry Blossoms, Symmetrical Drawings

Indoor Rain Showers, Air Pressure Magic

Give Back to Nature

Lifecycle of You

Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch
 Along the Path – Make a Butterfly Net

Butterfly nets are easy to make at home. You probably have most of the materials already.
Here’s what you’ll need:

A wire hanger

An old pillowcase

Pins
A ¾ inch dowel rod

Needle and thread

or a hot glue gun Heavy tape

1 2 3 4
Here’s
What to Do:

1. Stretch the hook of the hanger straight out, then work the rest of the hangar into a loop that
is as round as you can make it.

2. Put the open end of the pillowcase through the hanger loop.

3. Open the case and turn about 2 inches of the fabric back over the top of the hanger loop.
Now pin the fabric all the way around so that the hangar is held inside a fabric tube.

4. Using a needle and thread, start from the inside of the hoop and push the needle through the
fabric under the hoop. Pull the thread all the way through, then cross over the top of the
hoop and back inside the pillowcase. Repeat this all the way around the hoop. If you don’t
sew, a glue gun will work, but you may have to repair it more frequently.

Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch
Along the Path – Make a Butterfly Net (continued)

5. Lay the straightened out hook of the

hanger over the end of your dowel
rod. Line it up so that the edge of the
hoop rests against the dowel. Wrap
heavy tape tightly around the hanger
and dowel so that they are firmly
attached, creating a sturdy handle for
your net.

Now go out and look for butterflies! Butterflies love to be in open grassy areas, like
roadsides. Look for them near flowers too of course!

Once you catch a butterfly in your net, pull together the fabric at the top, near the
hangar hoop, to seal off the net. Slowly open it just a little so that you can see the
butterfly. Place a jar over this small opening in the net and gently move the fabric
beneath the butterfly to coax it toward the opening.

Once it’s inside the jar, carefully put on the lid. If you add a cotton ball soaked in a sugar
solution, you can keep your butterfly for a day or two for observation. Watch how it
unrolls its proboscis (a straw-like tongue) to drink from the cotton ball.

Then you can release the butterfly so that it will mate and make new butterflies for you
to enjoy.
The information on the next few pages will help you learn how to identify any butterflies
that you catch by first learning which butterfly group it belongs to.

In the same way that the group “Lepidoptera” is broken into moth and butterfly groups,
those groups can be broken down into even smaller groups. This mpnth we’ll focus on
butterflies.

Lepidopterists are like detectives when they are out in the field. If they find a butterfly, they
make lots of observations about it – its coloring, how it flies, its size, what it eats - and they
use those clues to find out which butterfly group it belongs to. Knowing a butterfly’s group
helps the scientist get one step closer to finding the true name of a butterfly she has found
in the wild. Learning the different butterfly groups can help you identify the butterflies that
you meet too!
Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch
 FIELD
GUIDE Along the Path
This edition’s Along the Path nature studies can stand alone, but also make a
Butterfly Eyes nice follow up to some of the taxonomy (classification of living things) skills
and Other your child may have gained while using Spring Book 1.
Secrets of the
Meadow, Joyce Classifying butterflies is a seemingly complicated concept, but one that even
Sidman young kids can begin to understand. Help your child to understand it in terms
of food…
The Butterfly
Alphabet, Kjell If I tell you that I have food in my lunchbox, and ask you to identify it
B Sandved without looking, you’ll have a hard time getting it right. You might ask me,
“is it a fruit?” or “is it a dairy product?” or “is it a dessert or a main dish?”
Butterfles
through In the same way, if a scientist finds a living creature and is not sure what it
Binoculars, is, he will make observations about the animal and use those clues to place it
Jeffrye Glassberg in progressively smaller groups.
Caterpillars in Practice this technique by putting a mystery object in a paper bag, Allow
the Field and your child 20 questions to discover what it is.
Garden, Allen,
Brock and Now do the same things with butterflies. Get a good field guide. I highly
Glassberg recommend the Golden Guide to Butterflies and Moths from St. Martin’s
press. It’s perfect for young butterfly enthusiasts. Make copies of several
Where butterflies and put them on index cards. Write the names and butterfly
Butterflies Grow, groups on the back. Now, let each person draw one butterfly. Using the pages
Joanne Ryder in this month’s Book of Days, try to identify your butterfly’s group. When
you think you have it, look it up and check yourself.
Butterfly
Alphabet Once you’re adept at grouping butterflies, you will be well on your way to
Coloring Book, becoming lepidopterologists. If you live in North America, you can order a
Carol Schmidt checklist from the North American Butterfly Association:
http://www.naba.org/pubs/checklst.html.
Golden Guide to It lists every known species of butterfly found in North America. There are
Butterflies and places to mark down the date and place that you find each one. Kids love
Moths, by St. being able to “collect” butterflies in this way.
Martin’s Press

Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch
 Investigate
Want to know how you can play in the rain without ever getting wet?

With this simple experiment, you can make it rain indoors! But don’t worry, you won’t need your galoshes
or a raincoat.

Ice cubes A clear bottle or tall A small metal pan (a round Very hot water
glass or square cake pan, or a
metal pie plate)

You will need:

Here’s What to Do:

1) Cover the bottom of the pan with ice. And let it sit for a minute or
two, so that it gets very cold.
2) Now fill the jar halfway with very hot tap water. Be really
careful!
3) Quickly put the pan of ice cubes on top of the jar.
4) Watch what happens at the top of the jar! It may take a few
minutes, but you’ll soon have a miniature rain shower.
5) Record your results on the back of the previous page.
Here’s What to Do:
What’s Going On Here?
6) Cover the bottom of the pan with ice.
Very hot water
7) Now turns
fill the jar to vapor and
halfway withrises.
very Once
hot tapit water.
hits theBe really careful!
cool
8) pan, it turns
Quickly putback intoofwater.
the pan When
ice cubes onthe
topwater
of thedroplets
jar.
on9)theWatch!
pan getIttoo heavy, they fall back into the water.
may take a few minutes, but you’ll soon have a
The same israinshower.
miniature happening when it rains outside. Warm air
full of water vapor rises. The air above the earth is very
cold, so when the warm air reaches it and begins to cool,
the vapor turns back into water. That’s how clouds are
formed. When the clouds become heavy with drops of
water, the rain drops begin to fall.

Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch
 FIELD
GUIDE
Investigate
Rainy Fiction -
Where Does the
Butterfly Go
When It Rains?, We all know that April showers bring May flowers, but what brought the
May Garelick showers?
Spring is a great time to talk about the water cycle, states of water, the
Gullywasher, science behind different types of cloud formations, thunder and lightening
Rising Moon and meteorology!
Editors
If you don’t have one, buy or make a rain gauge. Keep a record of how
Thunder Cake, much rain you get, the types of clouds that you see, and any other
Patricia Polacco observable weather.
The Storm Book, Watch the weather reports together with your child and test your
Charlotte meteorologist for accuracy. Keep track of his predictions and the actual
Zolotow weather for a month and compare.
Cloudy with a Work together to make a rainy day box – a small box of fun things that you
Chance of can do together when you’re stuck inside. Include some favorite recipes,
Meatballs, Judi word finds or crosswords, make “charade cards” (cards that say the name
Barrett of an item that the player is suppose to wordlessly act out while the other
players try to guess what her card says). What else can you think of?
Come On Rain,
Karen Hesse Research and test the accuracy of old weather prediction sayings. Here are
a few to get you started:
Wordless -
Peter Spier’s Ring around the moon means rain is coming soon.
Rain, Peter Spier Look for rain if the crow flies low.
Catchy drawer, sticky door, coming rain will pour and pour.
Rainstorm When clouds appear like rocks and towers, earth’s refreshed by frequent
Barbara Lehman showers.
Poplar trees and red and silver maples flip their leaves up when air pressure
The Science of is low and rain is imminent.
Rain-
Flash, Crash, Look into the history of weather prediction.
Rumble and
Roll, Franklyn Check out the two wordless books on our sidebar, and make up written
M. Branley stories to accompany them.
Weather, DK
Publishing

Blue Yonder Book of Days, written and illustrated by Stefani Austin . ©Blue Yonder Ranch