We wondered why.
We decided that the butterfly was dead and asked the girls what they thought might have happened to the butterfly.
‘Cause it fell down and hurt his head’
(we had explained that it was the Chrysalis that had fallen
and needed to be stuck back up with sellotape)
‘When it pumps it’s wings up it will get bigger’
‘It wasn’t pumping it’s self up’
‘It’s just a baby butterfly. It’s not ready yet’.
‘It might grow out when we go swimming’
‘If we put him outside his wings will get bigger, the other one did that
yesterday and then he flew away’
This exchange of ideas shows that the children have already
picked up a lot of knowledge about the transformation of
caterpillars into butterflies. As they have watched butterflies
emerging they have noticed that their wings are pumped up by exercising them.
Nature is the teacher!
Imogene did a little performance for us last night. First she was a caterpillar wriggling along the ground and eating leaves, then she curled up into a chrysalis and clung onto a branch and then she emerged as a beautiful butterfly flapping her wings.
ReplyDeleteShe told me that the last butterfly at school died because it was on the ground too long and it should have been cellotaped to the branch a lot sooner.
The girls enjoyed hearing this story. Imogene certainly connected to the dead butterfly! It was a bit of a surprise when we thought it was dead but it kept wriggling.
ReplyDelete