LATEST STORIES
Beginning our new year with a wonderful discovery!
Our new year began with our centre manager Preeti bringing in a swan plant. On this swan plant we noticed a couple of eggs. Excited to see what was to come out of these eggs we sat patiently and watched.
We would go play and our teachers had the swan plant in a safe place so that we could see the process and witness for ourselves the life cycle of a butterfly. We know that from these eggs out came caterpillars. There was a total of three caterpillars, and we watched them grow from tiny caterpillars into really big caterpillars. We thought it was really cool to see them crawling all over the swan plant and munching up all the leaves.
Lots of observing, waiting, questions, and conversations were happening about what it was we saw. We then came back from the weekend and our caterpillars were gone and in their place were three cocoons. What an amazing transformation and this led us to reading about the Hungry caterpillar story. As we waited, we had a number board to see how long it would take for the cocoon to open up. Every day we checked in on the cocoons and wrote which day we were up to show how many days they had been sleeping.
On day 15 our friend saw the cocoon opening up and called out, "Look the butterfly" and everyone raced on over to see a beautiful butterfly come out. They did not come out at once as they all came out a couple of hours after another. It was an exciting time for our Toetoe children (2-5year olds) as they saw the whole cycle from the beginning to end.
This is how we see the beginning of our 2021 journey here at BestStart Papatoetoe as our children start of as curious and diverse caterpillars who are nurtured and have their baskets filled with knowledge provided by our Kaiako, whanau and local community. This then leads to them becoming confident and competent butterflies who are ready to soar and fly. Looking forward to what 2021 has in store for us.