Science Discovery. Without Curriculum.

If you love gardening and plant tomato plants in said garden, you probably have discovered the Horn Worm. We discovered this little bugger last year as I was planting my first backyard garden.

See that. They actually have a little horn on their butts! Anyway, when we discovered them again this year, James was so excited!!!! He runs inside the house to get his Over & Under Creature Peeper so he can collect it and look at it.

This was the best $2 I have spent in a long time. I went to a local homeschool group book sale and got this gem. We have been on the internet to learn about the life cycle of the horn worm. This green little guy is actually the larvae. They will evenutally become a pupa and then...a moth!!!!

Pretty crazy, huh? But then we got to see one of the interesting things that happen to the horn worm. They can become prey to a wasp that lays it's many eggs on it's back. This will eventually kill the horn worm and there is no need to remove these from your tomato plants. These little non-stinging wasps kill creatures in the garden that do not benefit your garden. Therefore, these wasps are very beneficial. They eat catepillars, beetles, stink bugs and squash bugs. Look at what I found on my tomatoes yesterday:

Isn't this awesome! Science in our very own backyard! James loves his Creature Peeper. Everyday he wants to go out and find a new bug to put in it. We have been letting him keep a bug or creature for about a day then release them back into nature. He's named a couple of them too. "Zeus" was a black bug of some sort.

At the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, the horn worm is prominantly displaced in the insectarium. He is protected in a clear box, munching on a big tobacco leaf suspened in the air. But the really cool thing is that a tiny camera is in the box and kids can rotate the leaf and zoom in and out to really get a good look at the horn worm. However, James was more excited to see them in the garden and then in his Creature Peeper.

James has also made the decision to NOT be in the Five in a Row reading class that I am teaching in our co-op this Fall. Instead, he will be taking a Geology class. He's looking forward to learning about rocks, fossils and gems. And I think it will be very good for him. :)