Questions about Cicadas

Zara asked two interesting questions on the
blog about Cicadas.

How do Cicadas change into their Adult Costume?
What is the Adult Costume?

We divided the girls into two groups and had a conversation this morning,
about these questions...

Mrs Bayes:
I asked Zara where the idea of the ‘costume’ came from and she said that the man on the
video had talked about the Cicada’s costume changing. Some other thoughts...

Isabella: “They do it when they get older. They change.
It’s some sort of magic that makes the costume”.

What do you think a Cicada costume is?

Lily: “It’s gooey; it’s the body, it’s wet. It’s wet when it comes out”.

Isabella: “I think it is wet from the rain in the tree”.

I didn’t see any rain in the video, did you?

Isabella ... “ahhh no, well when it gets hot. When it’s in it’s grub shell it gets gooey”.

Zara: “I agree with Isabella, when it gets hot, then it gets gooey. When it’s
a grub shell it gets gooey. Then the rain comes”.

I introduced the word metamorphosis and explained that it was a word that describes insects that change into something new. Immediately Zara asked “do you mean like when a Chrysalis changes into a butterfly?” and Isabella said “Or do you mean when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly?”

I agreed that those were two really good examples of metamorphosis, although I wasn’t sure whether to ‘unpack’ the idea of the ‘chrysalis as opposed to the caterpillar/butterfly inside the chrysalis. I decided to let it sit...

From these ideas I mentioned that metamorphosis also occurs when tadpoles change into frogs.


And the second group:

We talked about Zara’s questions and I asked them about their ideas about...

‘What is their Adult Costume?’

“When they grow up into big parents” Mika
“It is the shell or the skin” Jacqui
“They grow their big skins when they climb up the tree and they go up, up, up the tree and grow their adult costume” Mika

“The adult costume...it is the skin part” Jacqui
“The skin is their bone colour” Jacqui
“The adult costume is brown” Féline
“No, it isn’t that’s the grub” Mika
“It is green, white and black” Scarlett

How do Cicada’s change into their adult costume?

“Maybe cicadas go into a flower and get wet and then they go into their adult costume”
Féline

“Maybe they get paint and paint themselves” Féline

“No they change themselves...like they change colour maybe from the sun?” Jacqui



We then re watched the video of the Cicada hatching, that the girls never seem to tire of!

Going over these conversations, we can see that there maybe an understanding that temperature might play a part in the change process. The girls are also relating the change to the age (adult) of the Cicada.

The second group has been influenced by some of the girls thoughts that the costume is referring to the Cicada’s skin. They seem to be interested in the colour and where it comes from. A suggestion has been made that there is a connection to the colour, back to the sun. We are wondering if that is to do with the temperatures of the sun or the colour of the sun? Is the sun causing causing the change?

Is the discussion around rain and wet and dry, to do with what causes the Cicada to change?

Thinking... thinking... thinking...

Finally there are NO MORE SLEEPS before we go to Scarlett's house!

We have been exploring several lines of inquiry this term;

That different species transform as they move through their lifespan

Environmental conditions support species to develop and grow

When we observe the life cycle of living things we can see their stages of development.

We were delighted to be invited to Scarlett's house to visit the woods and creek that surround her home. The adventures we took through the woods linked to extending our inquiry and provided endless possibilities for learning. 

Some very excited little girls climbed into the school van before we headed off to Scarlett's house. Lots of chatter was going on when Lily reminded the others that there was a monster on the top of the van and Mrs Bayes had to try and get him off when 

she went over the bumps! 

Great memory Lily.

 

We arrived at Scarlett's and met up with the other girls where we were welcomed with lots of laughter.

 Jodie had spread out the most scrumptious morning tea with lovely home made biscuits and baking. I felt it would be rude if I didn't try them all!

The girls were ready for the wilderness adventure but before we headed off into the trees, Miles gave us a ride on the little tractor.

The laughter and smiles on the girls faces was a wonderful sight to behold.

Then we all waded across the stream and Scarlett and Phoebe led the way up the steep hill. Without all our wanderings on Mt St John I don't think the girls would have been able to manage the difficulties we encountered.

After passing the 'secret stairs' where we heard that a Princess and a Pirate had disappeared a long time ago, we kept walking until we got to Isabella's house.

 Then we were off down the track and over to the neighbours garden where we watched the comings and goings of bees into the Bee Hive, collected Feijoas and tasted Cranberries.

  

 Jodie had gone to a lot of trouble to get honey comb and honey from her neighbours. The girls tasted and inspected the honey comb and we even got to bring a pot home!

After a play on the trampoline, a tug of war with the dog, kicking the ball around the garden and playing in the tent, it was time to re board the Dio van and head back to school, tired and happy.

 

It was particularly nice having lovely Sophie with us!

Jodie, Phoebe and Scarlett, we can't thank you enough for sharing your home, garden and woodlands with us. The home baking was beyond the call of duty 

and the melting moments were the BEST!

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig!

Preparations for our Field Trip

Our preparations for our field trip to the woods around Scarlett's house began by baking some very yummy cupcakes. Perhaps tasting the icing before they carefully iced the cakes, was one of the highlights?

Roasting Marshmallows on the Fire up Mt St John

Just as we didn't think it could get any better, today

we roasted marshmallows on our fire on Mt St John today.

Thanks Imogene for this idea.

The girls walked up the hill and they were a bit worried that their fire wouldn't be there.

Thank goodness it was just as it had been when they left last week.

We sat down around the fire and the constant question was

"When can we have the marshmallows?".

I explained to them that when you have a campfire you have to sing

camp songs and tell made up stories first.

We sang all our songs from our songbook that they girls are making.

Then we began a story with the words...

"Once upon a time on Mt St John, there was a huge and ferocious 

Dinosaur that lived in the crater"

 They girls had a turn to add to the story.

We did have to steer them away from killing off everyone, by explaining that 

if you kill all the people, that's the end of the story!

The story had dinosaurs, dragons, Maori people, fourteen girls (we loved that Lily asked "how many girls do we have again?" before she could tell us her part of the story. 

The Maori people came to help the girls and saved the day (thanks Lily)! 

What a delightful way to spend childhood!

 

A Superb Morning on Mt St John

Sometimes it's hard to believe how wonderful an experience can be. It was like that today up on the mountain. Perfect weather and the girls so enjoyed their time up there.

One of the highlights was watching the girls make a fire for the Big Bad Wolf to fall into. A game we often play on the mountain is the Three Little Pigs and the Wolf always falls into the fire and burns his rear end. They hysterically laugh every time that the wolf runs 

away holding his rear end, screaming... (you can guess who the Big Bad Wolf was!)

I noticed Lily kneeling down next to the fire with two sticks rubbing them furiously. One of the other

girls asked her what she was doing. "I'm starting the fire by rubbing sticks, I saw it on TV".

Féline followed this idea but she couldn't quite make up her mind whether the sticks were to make fire or whether they were the Doctors instruments for fixing the Wolfs bottom!

Another idea Féline had was to find rocks to put around the fire for people to sit on.

Unfortunately she couldn't get the other girls to cooperate with her as they wanted to put rocks around the edge of the fire to keep it safe.

As the girls searched for wood, rolled stones to the fire and found dry bracken, they unearthed

lots of little creatures and we would hear the frantic calls to other girls to come and have a look.

We have dubbed Mika the Queen of Insects as she is so interested in everything she finds.

The mountain is a wonderful place to build resilience in children. As they struggle with the challenges of climbing trees, pulling logs together, holding cicadas in their hands and learning to take risks, they grow in confidence and learn what they can do on their own and what they can do 

with just a little bit of help. Growing strong in mind, body and soul.

Such joy and so many learning opportunities all provided free of charge in our backyard!