Not only did Rosella enjoy their Christmas Fun Day today and farewell a dear classmate, but our second butterfly emerged as well! Full on excitement again as we witnessed this amazing transformation once again from chrysalis to beautiful butterfly. Our second butterfly was set free in the Quiet Area to begin the next phase of its life.
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After exploring and experiencing the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly this term, Rosella consolidated our knowledge of this amazing process by creating plasticine models of each stage. We did a great job and have now created a wonderful memento of our work this term that we can keep and hang up at home. Our butterfly was set free this afternoon in the Quiet Area at school after the storm had passed. Our butterfly was a female; the black webbing on the wings was thicker than the webbing on a male and she had no identifying wing spots like the male Monarch has. Our butterfly will live a short, but very busy life. She will live for about a month to six weeks and will fly around to find new milkweed plants on which to lay her eggs. She will take nectar from flowers to maintain her energy levels while she lays hundreds of eggs. The cycle of life begins again! At 7:00am this morning you could see a butterfly fully formed within the chrysalis skin that was now see-through! Not long now! As the lunchtime bell rang just before 11:00am, and Rosella started to go out and get their lunchboxes, one of our children saw the butterfly emerging! Excitement levels were super high as all the children realised what was happening and came over to watch this amazing final stage of the life cycle. Our butterfly emerged with the metamorphosis now complete from pupa (chrysalis) to a beautiful adult Monarch butterfly. The butterfly started to inflate its wings with fluid contained in its swollen abdomen. Its wings then took on their more regular shape. The butterfly had a rest while its wings began to dry. We waited a couple of hours and then we were able to gently hold the butterfly before its wings become fully dry and it's ready to be set free. Rosella have thoroughly enjoyed this unit of work on life cycles and have been so enthusiastic to take part in this wonderful journey of discovery. And it's not over yet! We have one more chrysalis and look forward to another butterfly emerging, hopefully next week. Here is a photo of our chrysalis this morning; the dark colour of the butterfly's body and wings are visible. This is our chrysalis this afternoon. It's very dark; it shouldn't be long until our butterfly emerges!
Rosella were very excited to see our caterpillar was in the J shape when we arrived at school this morning. It wasn't moving at all (no sit ups!) and its antennae were still normal (not shrivelled) so we were sure we would see it transform later in the day. We enjoyed our morning sport session, returned to the classroom for fruit break and guess what? No caterpillar, but another chrysalis. We couldn't believe it. It was still moist and wriggling around, so it must have just happened. It has chosen a leaf to attach itself to, so we have fingers and toes crossed the leaf will continue to hold it. (Apologies for the blurry photo.) We looked at the chrysalis again before going home today and it had hardened and already formed the beautiful gold spots on the rim at the top.
Our chrysalis has slightly darkened now in the centre which means it is beginning to transform into a butterfly. We were very excited today to see our caterpillar move to a twig and test it out to see if it's safe and sturdy enough. We know this means it is preparing to transform to the chrysalis stage very soon. However, after school the caterpillar returned to a leaf and appeared to be having a rest. We can hardly wait to see what happens tomorrow! (Our second caterpillar has gone to live in Kookaburra's room as their caterpillar had an unfortunate accident.) We were so excited to see our caterpillar as a chrysalis for the first time this morning. Our other two caterpillars have grown so much over the weekend, so they may make their transformation very soon too! We hope so! We weren't there to witness it, however our caterpillar will now be a chrysalis at school. There are two things that would have happened just before our caterpillar changed into a chrysalis. First its antennas would have gone all droopy and shriveled up and second, the caterpillar would have looked like it was doing sit-ups. Its metamorphosis would then have happened very quickly! The caterpillar would have started to shed its skin and and the wet chrysalis would be moving around. The last part is very tricky because the chrysalis does not want to fall off the twig. The chrysalis has get rid of the old caterpillar skin and the clasper that was holding on to the silk button and put in its own hook (cremaster) into the silk to keep hanging on. It would have twisted and turned to do this. The chrysalis, or pupa, would now be dry and hard. It's a shame we didn't see this happen at school, but here are some photos and videos of a past Kinder caterpillar. We also have two more caterpillars growing and hopefully we will see their transformation to chrysalis at school. After school our caterpillar stopped spinning its silk button. It moved forward and then turned around on the twig, put its back part over the silk button and grabbed it with its back claspers. Here is some video from this afternoon. The next step is the caterpillar will very slowly and carefully test if it can release all its legs/claspers from the twig to make its J shape, only hanging on with the back one. One by one, the caterpillar will let go and then let itself drop! This unfortunately will have happened this evening while we are all at home. Here are some photos and video of a previous Kinder caterpillar and how it happens. Our caterpillar had a rest after finding a safe spot on the twig and it started spinning a silk 'button' to keep itself attached to the twig when it changes to a chrysalis. The silk comes out in a fine thread from its spinneret under its head and the caterpillar weaves by moving its head from side to side. This took a few hours today. Look closely and you can see the small white silk ball under its head. Rosella were very excited to see this happening today. Here is video of our caterpillar beginning to spin its silk button today. Below is the silk button just about finished! All our caterpillars were happily munching away as usual this morning. However after sport our first hatched caterpillar had moved over to the sturdy twig placed there yesterday. It had finished eating, emptied its stomach and had been wandering around testing the twigs for a secure place to turn into chrysalis. It tests the twig by twisting and bending its body over and over again. We were very excited to see that it had moved away from the milkwood leaves! This is footage from a couple of years ago of a Kinder caterpillar testing the twig to make sure it was safe. This would have been happening while we were out at sport; when we came back to the room our caterpillar had found a safe place and was very settled.
Our caterpillars are growing rapidly. Our first hatched caterpillar is very close to the size where it will move to a safe and sturdy spot to make the transformation to chrysalis. We placed a twig in their bottle today, next to the milkweed plant, just in case! Exciting times ahead! Until this amazing metamorphosis occurs, here is some video of our 'eating machines' today.
Rosella's Three Caterpillars from Sue Dowling on Vimeo. Our three caterpillars, or mini 'eating machines', are enjoying some fresh milkweed leaves today. Yum!
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About UsRosella is a class of 17 happy and enthusiastic children excited to be in Kindergarten at Helensburgh PS in 2017. Our teachers are Mrs Jan Fuller (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) and Mrs Sue Dowling (Thursday and Friday) Our school is in NSW, Australia. Please feed Jig an apple and spray him clean if he rolls in the mud!
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