Today Morgan and Ivy discovered that more of the egg sacks hatched and we have more
baby praying mantises in our terrarium.
"We have lots more this time!" said Megan.
Not only were the babies all over the terrarium they were also
all over the science centre in our classroom.
The children were busy exploring the babies. The children think these babies are a bit older than the last ones we released because they are slightly bigger and most of these pray mantises are jumping around the terrarium. The last ones did not jump.
The children started predicting how many babies there were. We knew that there was well over a hundred new babies in the terrarium. There were so many it was impossible to count all of them.
We decided to release the new babies in the same place we released the 27 babies on Wednesday.
The children headed out and started releasing them into our outdoor classroom.
Lara wondered why a lot of the babies were hanging upside down. Ms. Lecoq explained to Lara that the pray mantises are molting. As the praying mantises grow they shed skin, then grow again and shed again. It is a process called molting. While the pray mantises are molting they will hand upside down.
While we left some of the pray mantises in the terrarium the children decided to create their own individual habitats. The children gathered rocks, twigs, soil and leaves.
After the children created their habitat they went out to find their new friends some food. Mmmm fruit flies...their favorite. The children trapped the fruit flies in a plastic bag from the digesters and brought them in and added them to their to the habitats that they created.
