Nature making it’s way indoors and learning mapping

It’s been a hot week, so I guess I should be thankful when nature exploration opportunities follow us indoors, right?  I was craving flowers to grace our breakfast table earlier this week and went out front to collect some bougainvillea blooms that were spilling over onto the sidewalk.  As I placed them in a vase, Keegan notices movement.  I had looked for spiders and other ‘blackish’ bugs, but failed to notice the slender camouflaged praying mantis.

Enraptured, we watch it slowly crawl around.  Boys eagerly put their hands out to capture it.  This is when we discover how smoothly and quickly this graceful creature could move.  He fairly danced over the petals.

“How many legs does he have, Trey-Trey?” I ask the 5 year old.  Older boys bit their lip to avoid shouting out the answer. Inwardly, I exult.  “Eeeee! A small sign of self-control.”  The 5 year old counts, but then comments on the funny looking front legs.  I ask the boys why they thought to call it a ‘praying’ mantis…   Boys study intently, as our little friend stops his dance and looks around.

“He rubs his front lets together and it looks like he’s kneeling to pray!!!” One boy exclaims.

Their attempts at catching him begin again in earnest.  But that little leaper jumps up arms and tickles the neck.  Boy squeals commence – whether from delight or fright, I cannot tell.  I step in and cup my hands around the little guy as we quickly make for the back door.  Nature study is officially over – at least the indoor portion.  On the back porch, I repeat a reminder to not kill our little friend.  Unlike cockroaches, we WANT praying mantis’ around.  They eat other bugs.  We google them and boys sit watching gory pictures of their insect meals pop-up.  We wonder aloud whether or not ‘preying’ mantis might be a more appropriate name.  hmmm, maybe there is a double meaning to its name.

While I’m typically not a fan of having bugs in the house, this was a nice break from hunting for bugs outdoors.  At least it was one of the ‘good bugs.’

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On a different note, we finally began work on nature mapping our yard.  We took another tour of the yard, reviewing plant names and headed indoors to start drawing maps at the kitchen table.  I explained birds-eye view maps similar to some we found in the book, Me on the Map.  I had no idea how challenging perspective would be.  My perfectionist son insisted on copying my map down to the last curve and my independent one mirror-imaged half of the yard, but not the other.  We’re going to slow down and work on some more map-making skills – starting with mapping their bedroom.  Tomorrow we’ll head across the street and do our map work outside where it will be easier to get the correct perspective.  Oh the joys of learning…  The boys have the opportunity to not get frustrated and view this as a failure {although my perfectionist was starting to panic a bit}.  Instead they get to learn to view {perceived} failure as simply part of the process!

{I love seeing what stood out to the 5 year old from our backyard…  The spotty grass – due to recent problems with our sprinklers and birds in the tree outside our window.}

This post is part of my Friday summer series: The Daily Outdoors Challenge where we commit to spend time outdoors – in play or nature study!