Caterpillars

Mrs. Laudadio brought in some new critters to our classroom this week. We have quite a few caterpillars making a home here. They eat dill weed, and are getting fatter every day. One has started his pupa stage already. These caterpillars look very similar to Monarch Butterfly larvae, but they are fact another butterfly variety called an Eastern Black Swallowtail.

For more information on the species click here:

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=1356

Butterfly Release

Today we said good-bye to our butterflies. We had 9 caterpillars spin chrysalises, and we waited patiently for them to emerge in the butterfly pavillion. Five of the butterflies were released today, but unfortunately not all of them survived. The students were very excited to crawl inside the tent with the insects. They loved seeing them up close.

We are finalizing our insect book this week and I hope to have it shipped and bound over Fall Break. I for one am glad to finally be done with all the little critters in our classroom. Thank you for your support, and for graciously sending in bugs for the last few weeks. I know the children have enjoyed this project and learned so much.

Eric Carle Painting

We had so much fun being messy and creating our Eric Carle paper. We will soon be starting our book about insects using this paper. Students finger painted, marble rolled, made collages, spatter painted, and used brushes to paint their designs. Look at some of our work.

Thank you to Mrs. Rich who was our parent volunteer who helped out, and to Mrs. Simmons the art teacher who loaned us her room for the afternoon.

Insect Project

We have been working hard on our insect project and learning about lots of different kinds of critters. Today the students used the paint program on the computer to draw different insects. We also took time in the afternoon to do some research and conduct surveys. They asked the other classes questions about animals that are commonly mistaken for insects like worms, spiders, etc. The they used a new program on the computer to create graphs showing their results.

Insect Expert

Today Mrs. Wright from the Indy Parks department visited our classroom to talk to the students about insects. The children have been busy finding insects almost every day and some are bringing them to school to share. Today we learned about the different body parts of insects and sang a song to help us remember and identify them. We also went outside to look for insects and found many great specimens. Some of the critters the students found were: moths, butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas, and a roly poly. We decided the roly poly wasn't really an insect because it had more than six legs. We also learned that all bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs.

Fun Friday: Apples

Today was another Fun Friday in first grade. This time our focus was apples. We did many activites for math and patterns, We read books about apples and watched a Reading Rainbow video about apples and cooking. Students also got to enjoy an applesauce treat at the end of the day. Yum!

We also found a huge praying mantis during our spelling test today. We kept it in our classroom for the afternoon, but decided to let it go at the end of the day. I was worried it might have babies over the weekend, and I did not want to return to class on Monday to a room full of tiny insects. My father found one once when he was a small boy and put it in a showbox in his closet. My grandmother found the box a while later and hundreds of baby bugs flew out scaring her senseless!

Insects

Today we started our FOSS kits and our new unit on insects. Each student received 3-4 mealworms to keep on their table area. We will be watching to see what changes occur over the next few months. (Don't tell them if you know what's going to happen.) We made lots of observations today and noticed our mealworms have segments, six legs, and either mouthparts or antennae. We learned that they need air, water, food, and space to live. Students will be documenting their observations in their science journals as we progress through this unit.