The making of butterfly feeders

 

The children wondered..."What do butterflies like to eat?"  The I Pads came out for some research and investigation. The children came across how to make a homemade butterfly feeders. Of course we had all the materials available in our classroom. The children went straight to work.

After the feeders were created we measured 10 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar and brought it to a boil. "That's the butterfly juice that they will love to eat." Sienna. We hung the feeders in our upstairs garden. The children wondered and made predictions on when we would see our first butterfly.

A Log's Life

An investigation has begun. 

Tiny insects continue to emerge in our art studio. 

They must be coming from somewhere in the area!

 

David believes he has discovered where the insects have been living.

He saw one of the insects crawling on a log.

The log had a hole.

We researched the insect and Mrs. St. Onge found out it is called the Red Headed Ash Borer

 They have hatched inside the wood stumps and are starting to investigate the world.

Just like us.

They like to camoflauge themselves to look like a wasp, but they don't sting.

Mostly, these insects just like wood.

David thinks they like to live in the dark.

We began to take the bark off of the stumps and found trails and trails of lines.

How did they make the trails?

 

 

 

What do they like to eat?

How strong are they?

Why are their heads red?

We'll be reading a book called A Log's Life

Click to see what a real story about a log's life.

Take a look inside the book

The wonder continues!

Surprise! We have babies!

"Miss! Miss! Look!!! There's babies in the terrarium!" 

Sure enough, we gazed into the terrarium and it was speckled with eensy, weensy, tiny insects.

A praying mantis egg sack had hatched.

We found it was awfully difficult to count how many insects had hatched, since they were hopping and moving all about. 

We observed that there were more than 10, 20 30, or 40.

Maybe there was even more than 100!

We decided to 'Zoomie' in on the baby praying mantis' and learn all that we could.

 

 

 

The children engaged in many interesting conversations. The discussed what they noticed and what they thought. 

They continued to revisit the terrarium.

What changes were occurring as each day passed?

What did the insects need in their habitat? What could they eat? Did they want to crawl on a stick?

Curiosity and wonder led the children to want to know more.

The baby praying mantis' are delicate.

Ms. Lecoq and the children researched information about the praying mantis babies.

Girl praying mantis' have more lines than boy ones.

The children compared how many lines the babies had.

Kids National Geographic has some interesting facts and cool pictures of praying mantis'.

There are a few great kid friendly sites that have many interesting facts about praying mantis'

The children love letting the tiny creatures crawl on their hand and watch them travel up their sleeves.

They enjoyed sharing their discovery with Ms. Sion, who had come to visit.

Ms. Sion knew so much about the praying mantis'!

The children have discovered that praying mantis' love to eat fruit flies...and maybe each other!

As they grow, they are shedding their old skin.

They like to hop.

The babies thought it was Springtime because it was warm inside.

Many more egg sacks are attached to the plants near the dry river rock bed in front of the school.

That's what we know....so far!