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Life Cycle of a Butterfly by BestStart Rongotai
Recently we were lucky enough to be gifted some Swan Plants for our centre and what an amazing learning opportunity this has been for tamariki.
The excitement has been ongoing as tamariki explored different processes along the way. We began by making sure our plants had plenty of water, so that they could grow big and strong, with plenty of leaves for the caterpillars to eat. Tamariki loved getting involved in this process, using watering cans to water the plants.
As the plants got bigger, we began seeing butterflies flying around the plants, and it wasn't long until we started to spot our first few eggs, which we continued to spot more of over the coming days.
As each egg hatched into a tiny caterpillar, we realised that our little plants were not going to be enough, so our w different vegetables such as cucumber, carrots and pumpkin, alongside five new plants to add to the garden space. Tamariki, kaiako and whānau were excited to continue to observe the caterpillars eat their way through the food, with cucumber being the favourite.
After a few more days, we began to notice the Caterpillars disappearing into the neighbouring Rosemary bush, getting themselves ready to turn into a chrysalis. Tamariki and kaiako had great fun, trying to spot as many Caterpillars as we could and found a few ready and in the process of this change. Capturing one in the process, we were able to capture this on video a share with the rest of the class. To further support the interest, we moved a few of the Chrysalis to the main playground, where tamariki could continue to observe them.
During this awesome learning opportunity, kaiako read stories with tamariki about butterflies and caterpillars, tamariki created their own Butterflies using different art and collage materials, and enjoyed dressing up as butterflies by putting on dress-up wings and pretending to fly around the centre.