Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Raising Butterflies in Room 12

Mrs. van Rees went to the Butterfly Conservatory (go here to check out their website) last week and bought a Monarch rearing kit for us. We were given 4 Monarch caterpillars, 3 chrysalides and a potted tropical milkweed plant. Today, 2 of the butterflies came out of the chrysalides! It was so exciting to watch the butterfly stretch out its wings. Did you know that the wings are scrunched up and wet when it first comes out. We needed to let it stretch out its wings and dry before we could let it go outside.

We have a butterfly bush outside our principal's office, so we carefully carried our 2 new butterflies to the bush where we safely placed them. After school, some of us looked to see if the butterflies were still there, but they had already flown away.

Here are some pictures of our caterpillar/butterfly habitat in the classroom:

Our Monarch habitat
If you look close, you can see the Monarch pattern of its wings within the chrysalis.


Our biggest caterpillar sitting on a leaf.

This butterfly JUST emerged from its chrysalis moments before Mrs. van Rees got out her camera!

3 comments:

  1. Wow, what a great way to start the school year. Our Kindergarten students typically have caterpillars in May so to me it is so exciting to see this happening now. I can't wait to check in and see what else you'll be up to this year. Ms. Lirenman, Grade One Teacher, Surrey, BC, Canada

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  2. Lucas, Kaleb, Sukhleen, Sarah, Roc, Zarha, Angelo, Steven, Nicky, Catherine, Ali, Jeevan, Elma, Hannah, Ricardo and Eldon like the pictures on your blog post. We learned about butterflies in Kindergarten. We want to know if you gave your butterflies a name. From Division 18 in Surrey, BC, Canada

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  3. Wow! We love your pictures! We learned about insects last year. We would really like to do this in our class. Mrs. Wideen said maybe we will do it in the spring.

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