Day 2

Mayday! Mayday! Caterpillar Down!!!!!!

Today a very sad incident happened in Room 13. While my class was in the computer lab, someone came into our class and opened our butterfly larva container. When we got back to class a student found that three larva had crawled out of the container. Two of them were on the outside of the lid but one was on the table. Unfortunatly, the larva on the table had been accidently crushed by a book.

Here is what some of my students had to say about this incident:

"I can't believe that someone would do this!"

"Who in the world would do such a thing?!"

"Why would someone do something to poor little creatures?"

"Who would come into a classroom and open a lid to a living creature's home?!"

"It's rude to go into someone's classroom and do somthing without asking permission."

"Who would snoop in someone else's class?"
"Who would open the lid? The caterpillars could get lost!"

My students felt horrible about this incident. One student made a coffin for our poor little caterpillar and another got some flowers.  We are looking into ways to keep our caterpillars safe.

Mrs. Flasha

Day 1

Day 1 with our Butterfly Larva ...

Today was our first day observing our butterfly larva. Here is what we observed:

- They are quite tiny

- They like to climb around the edges and some are upside down

- They are black-brown

- Most of them are eating

- There is webby stuff in the container

- They mostly stay in a group in the container

- Their food is yellowish

Cheers,

Room 13

The Butterflies Finally Arrived!

Room 13's painted lady butterfly larva finally arrived in the mail today! We were a little worried as they were nearly a week late.

When we opened the box we found that the butterfly larva were squished into a small plastic container full of old food and excrement. Yuck! The box also contained powdered food, a spoon, a new plastic container, a small paint brush and an instruction manual. After reading the manual, Mrs. Lastiwka-Durling and I mixed their powdered food with water and placed it in the empty plastic container. Then we used the paint brush to carefully transfer the butterfly larva into the container. Finally, we poked holes in the lid to let air in.





Butterfly Larva in Fresh Container

 What will we need to do next to ensure that our butterfly larva live a happy and healthy life? What else will we need to provide for them? Please leave us comments with your ideas.

We will update our blog regularly with photos and videos of our butterfly larva as they grow and change. We will also post the results of our ongoing butterfly research.

Mrs. Flasha