As part of the 2nd grade content curriculum, students are supposed to learn about life cycles. I think this is one of the most exciting things that 2nd graders learn because it has such hands-on potential and students love to learn about and see how different kinds of plants and animals grow. This year I have made it a goal of mine to work on making my life cycles units a little more interesting for the kiddos. We learned about pumpking life cycles in the fall and students sprouted their own pumpkin seeds. They had a lot of fun with it. This gave me confidence to take life cycles a bit further this spring with teaching them about butterfly life cycles. So, I did a little research on how one might possibly acquire caterpillars to grow in the classroom, put in an order for a "butterfly kit," and yesterday...
caterpillars!!!
They are pretty gross. And it has taken some getting used to. I'm keeping them in my brother's room because I knew I would have nightmares about giant caterpillars crawling all over me if they were in my room. (I had them delivered to my house just in case they arrived on a weekend and I'm glad I did.) So far they are just kind of crawling around and producing some sort of silky material. They will supposedly begin to enter their cocoons in a few days and then should emerge as butterflies about a week later.
I admit, this whole caterpillar business is a bit Silence-of-the-Lambs-y, but it's completely fascinating (if a bit yucky). Plus, I know this is one of those things that my kids will always remember doing which makes it worth it.
Aren't they cute?
