Today, my class had the wonderful chance to see a butterfly actually emerge from its chrysalis. It was an amazing sight to see and watch happen. It was by chance that we hadn't already left the room for Chapel practice. I had gone to my desk to get the Chapel items needed for the day and I happened to look over at our butterfly house. I saw a head poking out of the chrysalis. I hurried all my kids over to the butterfly house. We watched this in amazement. The kids were just in awe of it happening before them. We had already had 4 butterflies that had emerged over the weekend (of course when none of us were there). We watched until it opened its wings to dry out more. One of my kids asked, "How does it start coming out? What makes the Chrysalis come apart?" I was about to answer when one of my girls stated, "It uses its beak to come out. It just peck pecks until the chrysalis opens." I then gently explained that butterflies do not have beaks, only birds. I had some of the kids chime in and go "Yeah look at its face, it doesn't have a beak." The girl gently and nicely replied, "Well it fell off after it came out! It doesn't need it anymore!" So needless to say, we will be comparing insects such as butterflies to birds coming up before the school year ends. We will do a Venn Diagram with it. It was a good learning experience for them today and me as well. I saw that I need to go further into the parts of the body for insects (even as they had a whole field trip on this).
I have only seen one other time butterflies emerge from their chrysalis. That was several years ago. We did have 4 born today. Two others had emerged when we practiced Chapel. Apparently their names are Landon (after my son) and Mrs. Lindhurst. They haven't named all the others yet. How they keep track of which is which when we have eight and soon to be nine butterflies in there, I don't know, but I will go along with it because it makes them happy and lets face it- it is really cute! We were watching closely the rest of the day to have the two remaining chrysalis' emerge. I thought that one wasn't going to because it was really dark, almost black in color. I thought it wasn't making it. Well, my kids had to go to gym. Gym is literally about 30 feet from my classroom. I walked them there, went upstairs to the teaching lounge to get a snack, and then came back down. Not even gone 10 minutes. That dark chrysalis was empty with a new butterfly next to it! That little stinker! It waited until everyone was out of the room! So, needless to say, that ones name is Stinker. The kids think it is hilarious. I told them it is because he is a little stinker for coming out when no one was there and we had been watching and waiting for it!
I just love this butterfly unit though. I wish we could keep them all year long and watch the cycles over and over again! I will be sad when we have to let them go either later this week or next week. All depends on the weather. The kids have enjoyed watching them grow as caterpillars, watching me transfer the chrysalis' into the butterfly house, and now having butterflies! I can't wait for this again next year- and with two classes that will be fun!
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