Life Lessons

Brody has been in love with ladybugs for well over a year.  They are his very favorite bug.  We have the book Ladybugs: Red, Fiery, and Bright that we have read probably a hundred times.  I used it in my second grade classroom during the life cycles unit, and I pulled it out of my teacher stuff thinking that one day Brody would be interested and ready for it.  Well, he was ready and interested the day he saw it.  So after reading it numerous times, he knows all about larvae, molting, and how ladybugs come out of their cocoons as yellow beetles with no spots.  

This fall I moved my hibiscus plant indoors in an attempt to keep it alive over the winter. Little did I know it would serve as the host of a family science experiment.  A few weeks ago I noticed a ladybug crawling on the plant, so I showed it to Brody.  He, of course, was thrilled to see his favorite bug in action.  The next day while watering the hibiscus, I noticed these tiny larvae crawling all over the leaves, eating aphids.  They looked exactly like the pictures in the book. We watched them over the next week, getting bigger and eventually making their cocoons. Soon after that, we went to visit the plant to find all the cocoons open, but no ladybugs in sight. It didn't take long to find them.  They were all over the windows in our front room!  So now our house is completely infested with ladybugs, but it sure was a fun little experiment.  Brody looks for ladybugs every day and will climb on anything in sight in order to reach them when he sees them on the walls or windows.  We are working on being gentle, but inevitably they meet their end once Brody gets his hands on them.  Poor things.