The Fierce Hunter Known as the Praying Mantis

When I ordered caterpillars my friends at Insectlore said, "Because your order totaled over whatever amount you get a FREE Praying Mantis egg case with your purchase!"

Ok cool, right?

Well, the more I thought about it the more I decided... not that cool. It's kinda like saying...Just for you: A FREE boa constrictor will be sent with your order! Ok...maybe I took it too far. But this praying mantis egg case is stressing me out.

Yes, it's still an egg case! It arrived with the caterpillars... and it has since just sat there. The information they sent me said it would be 3-6 weeks until they hatched. It's been 5 weeks.... So I brought it home for Spring Break...and it still has just sat here.

The part that stresses me out a little is other information given to me in the pamphlet. The part where once they are born you should seperate them (oh yeah, did I mention there will be a couple hundred of them!) from each other as they will begin to eat one another. OK. Other fact- they need food...as in prey... so I googled it and there are many suggestions out there on how to gather food for your baby mantises such as putting out sugar water to attract ants. Just what I want to do. Then I am nervous to just release them as I don't know if they can or should be in this area... My hubby says, "Just throw it away and stop worrying about it!" But then I feel bad if there are little babies in there and I just toss them. So needless to say- I am not a big fan of this egg case. I'll give it one more week to hatch!

The big question is....Will the kids ask about it when we go back to school tomorrow? They were intrigued at first, but hey, 4 weeks of nothing kinda lost their attention.

Learning about this insect definitely kept their attention.

We wrote some facts about praying mantises.

 Oh, the famous "b" reversal in action... gotta love kindergarten.

#3 says: A praying mantis can turn its head.

We made Deanna Jump's praying mantis which I LOVE! It is in her Insect Unit.

And we learned the song "Im a Fierce Hunter" - this song is catchy and the kids will start clapping along- they love it.... BUT personally, I don't play the last 2 verses of the song...kinda going back to the afore mentioned reasons above... oh and here's another one the song shares: the female often eats the male after mating. Just listen to it ahead of time and you choose. I get this song off of United Streaming. If you don't have that access to that then I'm not sure where you can find it as I just did a quick google search with no luck, but it's a great song full of facts!

Well that's it for now. I'm off to bed for my first day back after Spring Break tomorrow!