Ladies and gentleman you are in for a TREAT - this special book was Deb's favorite childhood story! We hope you enjoy hearing "Caroline's Party"!It's caterpillar time! A Letter from Science Teacher WendyHello Paddington friends! Every spring we do a science unit on the life cycle of a butterfly using live caterpillars (ordered directly from InsectLore.com, or through Amazon). Most of us have read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. There are many other wonderful books about butterflies including the following: “A Butterfly is Patient”, by Dianna Astone and Sylvia Long “Butterfly, Butterfly”, by Petr Horacek The scientific term for the changing of a caterpillar into a butterfly is metamorphosis. This insect has two completely different body forms! Another insect that is similar to a butterfly is a moth. Moth caterpillars follow the same life cycle, however instead of forming a chrysalis, they form a “cocoon”. These terms are often mixed up. Butterflies: Chrysalis, Moths: Cocoons.  Our baby caterpillars arrived in a cup that contained all food the caterpillars will need. They will grow inside the cup over a 2 week period, then will crawl to the top and form their chrysalides. At that point, we will move the chrysalides to the butterfly tent and wait for our butterflies to emerge. Check out the National Geographic kids website for more great information and photos of the process of butterfly metamorphosis! Below are some photos of the progress of our caterpillars over the first week: Day 1: The caterpillars are about the size of a grain of rice. There are five caterpillars in the cup.  Day 2: The caterpillars are very active, and they crawl around the cup a lot! They have grown just a little.  Day 3:The caterpillars have almost doubled in size! You can see that they have lots of spikes, or hairs all over their bodies.  Day 4: As they eat the food, the brown stuff changes a little. This could be waste products (or poop, for a better term🙂). You can also see what looks like tiny pieces of the caterpillar’s body. Like many other insects, caterpillars molt as they grow. THis means they shed their outer layers so their bodies can grow.  Day 6: The caterpillars are getting even bigger! They like to crawl all over the cup.  I will continue to take photos of their changes each day. Stay tuned for another posting! I miss you all, and I am excited to join some of your classroom Zoom meetings in the near future! Wendy Planting Zucchini Seeds with Wendy!Send us some pictures of your growing seeds!
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February 2021
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