Releasing our butterflies

I was so happy to have 4 butterflies to release by Thursday! The last guy was hanging on in his chrysalis, but he had changed quite a bit later than the others. It was cool to see its wings through the chrysalis, though.

It was only 60 degrees and cloudy, so just barely warm enough. Based on past experience, they love the sun and fly like crazy when it's hot. Since it wasn't, they didn't really do anything. They just sat in the habitat, and opened their wings. Eventually, we got sick of waiting (and kids were losing interest), so I pulled out the piece of watermelon that one was sitting on. It didn't move, so each child that wanted a chance to hold it, got to. They loved that! As they were passing it around, 1 butterfly did fly out and fly around the yard. They chased it everywhere as it flew and landed in the orchard, the irises, and grapes. It was so fun.

The one on the watermelon eventually flew off too. So I pulled out the flower with another butterfly, and got it to walk onto my finger. It was so calm and content, so each child who wanted a turn, got to hold it on their finger. They loved that!

The 4th butterfly was parked on the lid, next to the chrysalis that hadn't emerged, so I didn't dare pull it out. Eventually, we just went back inside.


We went in and got ready for our program and then once parents arrived, I noticed the last butterfly had emerged! We just missed watching it happen.

After school, I took them outside, and the newly emerged one flew off first! It was sunnier and warmer, so the other quickly followed and they flew off without letting any of us touch them! I'm so glad for the earlier weather so that each child got to hold one of our butterflies.

Butterflies!

I got nervous over the weekend, when nothing happened! Monday was day 11-12 for some of them, and the instructions say they should emerge in 7-10 days. I had them outside much of the day Monday, thinking they might need some warmth since it is cooler downstairs and it'd been a cold weekend.
Tuesday morning, my kids woke up and saw a butterfly! We got breakfast and I got an orange slice to feed it, and when I put it in, I noticed 2 more butterflies! I was most excited to see the dented one on the floor had emerged and was just fine.


The kids were excited to see them, but a little bored, because they just sat there. I wasn't sure what time they had emerged, but I did explain to them that they need time to dry and stretch out their wings, plus get the blood flowing.


During snack, they started flapping more, then even flew around. So as the kids finished, they came and watched them, and all got to see them flap and fly. They were squealing and laughing and loved watching them move!

It's going to be so much fun to release them on Thursday!

**note added Wednesday, one more butterfly emerged, one more to go!

Bugs!

Dramatic Play

The first two days, we played in ant tunnels.  I also had butterfly and ladybug headbands for them to play with.



The second two days, we played the butterfly life cycle. I truthfully wasn't sure if they'd get it, but thought of it as my kids were playing in sleeping bags one time and looked like caterpillars. They got it and loved it! I was so impressed! They loved wiggling around, then going in their chrysalis, and shedding their skin to become a butterfly. Some even were ladybug larva, then a pupa, then a ladybug. My teacher heart sang :)


 

Blocks

Dramatic Play extended over, but this also became our science bug center for our live bugs. Look how tiny the caterpillars started!!
 



 
There were also bug games and puzzles available for them to play, and they did them all.

Art

Bug sponge stamping. I added some plants too.
 
We did snack prep to make ladybug pizzas. Then painted.

We made egg carton bugs.
 
Looked at live ladybugs! I bought a bag of 1500 at Smith's, and was super disappointed that 75% were dead :(  But the live ones were fun to watch and release.

Small Manipulatives

Pattern puzzle magnets with bug patterns

Insect Dominos

File Folder Games (thanks to my son's awesome church teacher)

Bee Counting Game (thanks to that same teacher)

Bug Size Sorting (again, amazing primary teacher)

Ladybug ABC puzzle
 
The Hungry Caterpillar story board and puzzle
 
Writing
 We had bug stamp markers
 
and bug tracing/coloring pages 
 
Snack

Our bug-specific snacks were the lady bug pizzas.
 
And caterpillar kabobs, which they made by putting grapes and blueberries on their skewers. They were delicious, healthy, and a great fine motor activity!

 Outside

We had bugs in the sensory table with wheat.

I also had jars for bug catching. We looked underneath things in my yard and found lots of worms, centipedes, spiders, and earwigs. We also had fun chasing and trying to catch baby grasshoppers! They're fast little guys, and we did manage to catch 2.

 

Large Group
We learned the word Life Cycle, and used the bug models I had to learn about the life cycles of Butterflies, Ladybugs, and Praying Mantises. Then, they got in groups of 3 and took turns with the models and put them all in order.

We made caterpillars by gluing pom poms on clothespins. They will transform later.
 
We took a field trip to my neighbor's beehive. She forgot and wasn't home, but we still got to see the hive and bees, touch real wax from the bees, and see one of the boards they had built their honeycomb on. We also saw many bugs on our walk.

We read The Hungry Caterpillar, then painted a coffee filter with watercolors for our butterflies. Once they dried, our caterpillars transformed into butterflies!

We wrote in our journals about our favorite bugs we learned about.

Each day, we sang Head Thorax Abdomen to learned about insects. It's to the tune of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.

Head, thorax, abdomen. Abdomen. Abdomen.
Head, thorax, abdomen. 6 legs and antennae.


Small Group
Miss Kim worked on math. They did the bug 1-10 puzzles, then sorted bugs by size.

My group did math too, using a bug measuring book I have. It has an attached measuring tape, so we read the book and took turns measuring the bugs on each page.

Week 2, Miss Kim played The Hungry Caterpillar board game with her group.

My group reviewed patterns and made caterpillar necklaces with green penne pasta and red pony beads.

Butterfly release take 2

This was our best butterfly release yet! It was warm and sunny and they were ready to go! The flew right out, and the best part was, they stayed in the yard! Previous ones have done a few laps, then flown off, but these guys stuck around forever! They flew away a few times, but always came back. The kids were in 2 groups, each following one. It was a glorious 20 minutes of running and squealing and calling each other over each time one landed. All the pictures I have are full of the kids, and you'll be getting copies at our BBQ. This was just so much fun and I'm so glad the kids got to really watch them fly and play with them.

Releasing the butterflies

This was such a fun day. We got to see a butterfly moments after it hatched Tuesday, and today we got to watch the last one hatch! It was amazing!! We were making smoothies and our favorite preschool Grandma had stayed to help and noticed an antenna. She called us over, and they all got to go over and watch the butterfly hatch. I was so excited, and so were the kids!

We had planned on releasing the butterflies that day, because by next Tuesday, 2 of them would be a week old and they only live a week in captivity. I knew the new one couldn't fly out, but we took the others out anyway. My phone said it was only 53 degrees, so I wasn't sure what they'd do. We took them out and there were two right by the top zipper. When I opened it, the one crawled out and just stayed there. The other 2 opened their wings, but stayed put. I moved them over by the flowers thinking they'd like them, and one flew out. The kids got to chase it all over the yard before it took off and they loved that.

The others never left, so we took them all back inside with us.

I was worried they wouldn't survive until the next week, so that afternoon when the sun came out, I tried again and one flew immediately away, but the other stayed in, and of course the newest one couldn't leave.

A new butterfly, and releasing ladybugs!

The kids were so excited today to see the butterflies. They each got to drop in an orange slice to feed them and all thought it was a bit scary and exciting. We noticed one chrysalis was really dark and I told them it would hatch today. They asked what they look like after they hatch, so I showed them in one of our books. A few minutes later, one of our girls yelled out that it hatched! It had just come out and was all wrinkled up, and I was so glad all the kids were there to see it.





We released the ladybugs during recess and I was so glad it was sunny! None of them flew, they just started crawling onto the grass. I scooped them up and each kid got to hold at least one, some more if they wanted. We then put them in our flowers and bushes.



They were in a bug type mood and as they searched under rocks for bugs, discovered a whole ant colony! They were so excited because we could see the eggs. We watched the ants carry their eggs into the tunnels. We went inside late because they were having such a great time watching them. It's so fun to watch their excitement and learning in spontaneous activities like this!

Picture 2 shows all the eggs gone. Within a few minutes, they had hidden them all in their tunnels.

Butterflies!

Sorry I didn't update much over the weekend. Not much happened :) The ladybugs hatched about 1 a day, and as of Sunday afternoon, all 8 had hatched. It's interesting that none of them are red. I'm really excited to release them with the kids tomorrow, except it's supposed to rain. We're going to release them either way, because their "watering hole" is growing mold (gross) and they can only live a week in captivity anyway, and the first is almost a week old. They survive rain in the wild, they'll just have to deal :)



This morning, we checked on the chrysalides again and nothing! It was day 11 for the first one (they hatch between 7-10 days). So I emailed Insect Lore to ask about a refill since their guarantee promises 3 to hatch. Then, a few hours later, McKynlee went to check on them before we ran some errands and we had 2 butterflies! I snapped these pics on my phone real quick.

The red stuff is something that leaks out of them after they hatch. It's gross, but normal.

We had a crazy day of running around, so we didn't really get to check on them again until this evening. We fed them (sugar water dripped on flowers) and they went crazy! They were flying all over and the kids were just squealing. I tried to get pictures, but they're so fast, and it's hard to see them with the butterfly pictures all over the bottom. So the pics aren't great. But, tomorrow the kids get to see butterflies! I'll let them feed them oranges tomorrow and I hope we get some more flying! I'm hoping the other 2 will still hatch.