Of course we had to cover the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus)! Unfortunately, we didn't see a caterpillar this year, but we have seen some flying around the yard. Always a great insect to use to talk about life cycles.

We started with milkweed so we can learn about Monarchs next. Unfortunately, with the drought, our milkweed hasn't done great and I never noticed any monarch caterpillars - I usually see several each year. The milkweed in our area is generally orange (Butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa), pink (Swamp Milkweed, A. incarnata), or white and pink (Common Milkweed, A. syriaca).

Our final addition to our Summer board is Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)! It's been pretty dry and this plant likes water, but I was still able to find some sad plants in the corners of our yard. 😂 They're one of my favorite native flowers since it looks neat how the stem connects to the "front" of the flower instead of the "back".

Not only tasty, tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are a great way to talk about how fruits are made since you can commonly see all stages of fruiting on one plant (flower, immature fruit, mature fruit). I didn't have anything smooth, so we just used some red pom-poms for the tomatoes.

There's a large pond nearby that drains into a creek that runs along our backyard, so we always get to see tons of different species of dragonflies. They come in so many different shapes in sizes! It was hard to pick the species that I wanted to draw.

Almost every year we have mantises hatch on our deck so we get to see lots of babies and a few big ones. They are always fun to watch move around and hunt. It’s very exciting to catch a big one and be able to show it to the girls. And, although they might look scary, they are harmless to us.

We don't have too many blue flowers around here so Chicory (Cichorium intybus) always stands out to me once it starts blooming. Fun fact: All of chicory is edible! I personally don't think it tastes the best, but there you go.

We have a large old oak tree and several walnuts in our yard, so we naturally have an abundance of chipmunks and squirrels. The Eastern Chipmunks (Tamias striatus) are cuter in my opinion, so that's what we learned about 😂.

We have a creek in our backyard and come across Leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens) every so often in the summer. We also get to see them at the local parks and the girls are always very excited to come across one.

Of course we had to do lightning bugs! Or are they fireflies where you are from? Quite the debate on what to call these little guys with the glowy butts, but this one is based on the Common Eastern Firefly (Photinus pyralis) since we are in Ohio.

Well, we were going to learn about Painted Lady butterflies first, but then a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) landed on our deck and hung out with us for a while. I only identified it later from photos I took, so it was nice to revisit it and teach the girls its name.

We've had a lot of Turkey Vultures flying overhead this year and they are very easily identified due to their size and wing pattern. Beyond the red head and black body, they have gray that runs along the wing. The only other vulture in the area is the lesser seen Black Vulture and it only has gray on the tip of the wing.

It’s time for summer and our next season board! Our first summer plant is white clover (Trifolium repens). We also have yellow and crimson clover in our yard, so the girls couldn't help but color a few of the flowers different colors. We glued small amounts of cotton to the flower heads to bring them to life - I think it worked well.

And our final thing for spring is the Cabbage White Butterfly! While there is still plenty of stuff out there to learn about, our board is now full ;). While the butterfly is mainly, well, white, we still had fun gluing tissue paper on the wings.

Ants! When you start paying attention to the little guys, there are actually a ton of different kinds. Last summer, I found 13 different species in my yard alone! From helping clean up the world to improving soil quality, they are super important for the environment. I couldn’t think of anything super creative for the craft, but thought it could be a fun time to introduce pipe cleaners and how insects use antennae.

Our final bird of the spring is the Crow! I wasn't sure how many birds I was going to cover, but Claire really wanted to do another bird, so here we are. Claire decided that her crow has a blue cheek.