Regular Farm Day turned Entomology Lesson

We used to home school. Several years and 3 kids ago.  Once number 4 came up to school age, I panicked and shipped everyone back off to public school.

I'd like to say I never looked back, that I don't regret sending them to public school, but I'd be lying. Truth is, sometimes I wish we still home schooled and other days I'm so glad we don't!

But, that doesn't mean we don't still do some form of learning/schooling in the off months with our kids.  You know, during the summer when they are home from hell school.

Today started off like any normal day.  But it was also a special day, as number 5 (aka Baby boy) turned 5 today.  This is monumental in that he will now join the ranks of the scholars this fall.  He's pretty excited.  So after the normal morning farm routines we geared up for a mid-day Birthday Celebration. 

Then we headed outside while we had some cooler weather (it was scorching last week!) to get some much needed clean up done around the animal pens.  The kids were thrilled when we found this...

 This was a young praying mantis, maybe only 2 inches long from head to end of his (her?) tail. 

I love that it looked right at my camera!!

We had a detailed discussion about Praying Mantis, how they are good bugs that eat the bad bugs, how males have the "short end" of the stick in their species, and how fun they are to watch.

After we were done checking him out, we released him in our garden.  :)  We figured it was the best place for him.

Then we moved onto to some duck watching before calling it a day.