Butterfly Story & Creating a Butterfly Bottle
© Clonown
N.S. Schools Integration Project NO 22
Two children were outside
Clonown N.S. They saw a White butterfly come into the garden. It was looking for a good spot to lay its eggs. It was
sniffing around with its
feelers. It landed on the nasturtiums. ‘This is a good spot. My eggs will turn
into caterpillars and they will eat nasturtiums.’’(Caterpillars usually only
eat one type of plant)
A few days later Shane was
looking at the nasturtium leaves. Caterpillars
were eating the leaves and eating and eating and eating.
He tried to see the caterpillars12 tiny eyes but they were very small.
The caterpillar was holding on to the leaves with its front 3 pairs of
legs.
It was climbing up stalks with its back 5 pairs of legs.
Some children got some leaves with
caterpillars on them. They brought them into the classroom. The teacher made a
butterfly bottle.
The teacher got a plastic bottle, scissors, glue and gauze. She cut
holes in the bottle and covered the holes with gauze.
The
teacher cut the bottom off the bottle and put it sitting in a flowerpot of sand.
The infants put the caterpillars inside.
The class brought the caterpillars fresh leaves everyday. They brought
them nasturtiums leaves because they were caterpillars of the white butterfly.
One morning when the children came to school
they were looking for the caterpillar.
One of them spotted it dangling from the
bottle. It looked very weird. Its skin had hardened and it was not hairy any
more. It looked like a reptile. It
was lying very still.
The children realised that it had changed into
a pupa and was waiting to turn into a butterfly in the spring.
When
we went inside more butterflies arrived.
This is a picture of a red admiral and tortoiseshell. They are sipping
nectar from the Michaelmas daisies.
