* We have watched our caterpillars (larva) eat milkweed, grow and shed their skin several times until they were big and fat.
*We watched them make 'sticky, white stuff' that 'looked like a web' on the top of the tank and then hang upside down in a 'j'.
*We then saw our caterpillars disappear into a pale green and gold chrysalis (pupa) and emerge as a beautiful, adult butterfly.
*While watching the caterpillars that were in the tank, we suddenly noticed 1 more that hadn't been there before. Where had it come from? We think we had an egg on the leaves of our milkweed that hatched. We gave the new little caterpillar (larva) to Mrs. Douglas's class so they can watch it grow big and fat and see it disappear into a chrysalis (pupa).
In the meantime:
*we have done some fantastic writing about each of the stages that we observed!
* we took our learning outdoors and acted out each stage of the butterfly lifecycle
*we observed and noticed changes at each stage of the lifecycle
*we shared this experience with students from the other grade 2 classes
Ask your child to tell you everything they remember about the lifecycle of a Monarch Butterfly and also about how butterflies are different from moths!
