Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! I Love Bugs!

First, I have to apologize - I don't know why my computer is turning all of my pictures suddenly.

 

Next - even though our 'butterfly theme' is long done, we've had some impromptu experiences over the summer because of it.  Having gained confidence from rearing our purchased butterfly larvae, we have stumbled upon 'wild' caterpillars in the course of our daily nature walks/trips to the park, and enjoyed bringing the creatures home to study closely.

 



 

These beautiful creepy crawlies are actually moths.

As is this one - he did not like being handled - instantly curling up into a ball and thrashing wildly if he believed you were anything other than a twig or tree branch - much to the children's amusement.

We thought this dragonflies wings were busted, but after studying him for a few minutes, he casually flew away.  So cool!

Every kid loves a good wet worm!

And this was a beautiful surprise - just a simple black caterpillar we found, brought home, crawled up and form a chrysalis.  10 days later, we had a morning cloak butterfly.  Love!

The Hungry Caterpillar

I'm sure most of you have heard of or read the popular children's book by Eric Carle, about the little caterpillar who hatches out of his egg one Sunday morning and starts to eat everything in sight, before eventually emerging from his chrysalis as a beautiful butterfly.

Well, this year, we decided to explore that idea with some more depth.  We purchased a small set of live larvae from Butterfly Wing's n' Wishes and raised our own caterpillars, watching as they ate like crazy, got bigger each day, hid away in a hanging chrysalis, and then emerged with vibrant wings.

Here are some of the pictures we took:

The downside was that the caterpillars couldn't be handled too much, as it affected their survival rates.  It would have been fun to let them crawl around on an open space or across wiggly fingers, but I really wanted the experience of the children watching them change through the various phases.

They were still excited to see them though, and asked every morning to see how much bigger they were.  I think the highlight of the whole experience was that we got to actually watch three emerge from their chrysalis.  The older kids were surprised by how shrivelled and deformed their wings looked at first, thinking they were defective somehow, so it was a nice stretch of learning to observe them unfold and straighten.

It was hard to watch them fly away and say goodbye.  The kids decided to name them Flutterby, Fluttershy, Shutterfly, William, Elizabeth, Bowser and Peach.  I guess that's what happens when you let kids name things.  They worked, however.

I think we will definitely be repeating this experience next spring.

Here are some of the activities we did to go with this unit:

This is a really simple craft that re-inforces the metamorphosis of the butterfly using rice (on a leaf) and basic pasta.  I asked the children to use the shapes to show me what happened as we watched the bugs change.  They knew exactly what to do, because they had experienced it.

I love this activity:  it uses fine motor skills (ripping, coloring, shading, cutting, gluing) and teaches the concept of camoflouge.  The children are given identical butterflies to color, shade, cut out and glue on a background of ripped newsprint.  From a distance, the grey butterfly really blends in with its background.  Can you spot them?

These are coffee filter butterflies, made with markers.  Kids always love to color with markers.

And you can't do a butterfly unit without egg cartoon caterpillars.  Aren't they cute?