And Then Came the Monarchs

This is a photo of a milkweed plant. In June, I asked my dad if he thought that they had any growing on their 40-acre farm. I wanted to have a place to gather some for food in the case that we were able to get some monarch caterpillars from a friend of mine. When I finally took the time to look up milkweed plants, I came to realize that I've been killing milkweed all summer long. It keeps sprouting up in my flower beds and I have been pulling those weeds!!!

GAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

Live and learn, I guess. Fortunately, my darling hubby thought that they looked pretty cool and let a patch of them grow near our shed and near one of the liloc bushes. Now, we don't need to have someone bring us monarch caterpillars, we have been able to find our own!

Here is Dane pointing to a tiny little egg sitting on the back of this leaf. We gathered some eggs and some tiny little caterpillars to watch them transform with all of the children. Most of them are quite small. The largest one found by Mr. Allan is about a centimeter long. The rest are very tiny.

You can see the centimeter ruler we put in the next two photographs to give you an idea of exactly how big they are.

After we looked at the milkweed that was in our yard, we went for a short walk to the bike trail near our house. We found a lot of milkweed, but not many eggs or caterpillars. However, with our overall collection, I think we have 7 caterpillars and quite a few eggs. You will have to check back to watch us as we observe this "magical" tranformation happen.

If you missed our first caterpillar/butterfly metamorphosis observations with the Painted Lady Butterflies, you may wish to check out these posts:

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Caterpillars and Butterflies Today's Update

Emergence of the Painted Ladies

I can tell you already that I am liking the experience with the Monarchs much better than that with the painted ladies. For starters, I like how we can see the full life cycle and how the children can help to find the eggs. I also like how they can see the caterpillars eating their natural food and not some "goop" in a jar. I know there will be more to post as we compare the two experiences in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

Comments

Joyful Learner said…

You know I've never seen the eggs myself! How cool that you were able to find Monarch butterfly eggs! Where did you find them?

Thanks for the tip on legos! I feel smarter already knowing where the word originated! :)

July 30, 2010 at 2:37 AM

A Few Ideas With Marker Caps (As Promised)

Yesterday, I hope I convinced you not to throw away your markers that "don't work." Today, I will share with you a few ideas for what to do with all of the caps. The possibilities are nearly endless, but here are a few of our recent creations: 1) A Leprechaun/Fairy Ladder/Rope Ladder: 2) #1 if not permanently secured can also double as a rope bridge: 3) #1/#2 can also be made into a train track for your homemade trains :). (No photo available) 4) You can use them as beads for a necklace: 5) You could make them into a wind chime. (No photo available). 6. You can use them as small manipulatives to count, sort, and make patterns with. (No photo available). 7) You could use them as playing pieces in your own homemade board game. (No photo available). 8) You could put them on a wire and glue them in place to make a twirling whirly-gig. 9) You could top them with a lid from a milk jug to make tiny tables or toadstools. 10) You could make them...

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There has been a lot of buzz about light tables over at Teach Preschool on Facebook . Deborah has collected some great ideas for light table play and has been experimenting with making her own table over on the Teach Preschool blog. I thought I would share with you our two light tables and how we made them. This first table is one that we put together with some scrap wood pieces, an old plexi-glass door from an entertainment center, and a couple of aquarium lights. Total Cost = $0. (We had everything on hand.) The table needs a little bit of tweaking. (It is on my to do list). Basically, we made a frame of wood around the plexi-glass and placed the lights under it. Our DIY skills in putting this together were far from expert, so the frame has a couple of gaps (and the reused wood is warped). We plan to try a new frame and use some caulk to seal any gaps. We also plan to attach the lights to the side of the frame instead of just placing them on the f...

"The Markers Don't Work!"

How may times have you heard, "Ms. (fill your name in here), this marker doesn't work!" I know I hear it all the time. Sometimes it is because our little friends forget to replace the caps, and sometimes the markers have just been "all used up!" What do you do with all those markers that just don't work? Please don't tell me that you throw them out, try this instead: First, sort your markers out. Put the caps in one container ( save those too, I'll show you what you can do with them in tomorrow's post) and the markers in another. I have a box for the markers that "don't work" for the children to place them into every time they run across one. You can also have the children help you test the markers periodically to sort out the ones that need to be removed from the "working set." When it comes time to use "the markers that don't work," we use a small sponge paint roller to roll water onto our card...

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