Butterflies and Crazy Hats.. A Room 11 Update!

The children have been super excited about our butterfly unit.  As you could see from the previous posts, last week, the children watched all 14 of our caterpillars change into chrysalids.  According to our resident butterfly expert, Miss Costello, the painted lady butterflies should start to emerge from their chrysalids.

We will be keeping the butterflies in the large mesh tents so that the children will be able to observe the life cycle begin all over again!  We will be observing the butterflies body parts and watching how they drink the nectar from flowering plants.  Once we have had some time to watch the butterflies in our classroom, we will place the butterflies in the greenhouse at Beal. 

In order to really observe the behaviors of the butterflies, we need a flowering plant.  We would love donations of flowering "nectar" potted plants (3-7 inch pots) for the butterflies.  Purple Salvia, all Daisies, Lantana, Verbena, and Marigold are all good "nectar" plants. We also need a donation of a larval plant for the butterflies to lay their eggs.   Jungle Jim's in West Boylston has larval plants for the new eggs.  We would love donations of Holly Hock or Mallow plants.  Finally, we would love some donations of oranges to put in the tent for the adult butterflies to feed on!

On another note, WEDNESDAY 5/25 is CRAZY HAT DAY at Beal.  Please send your child to school with any crazy hat to wear for the day!  This is part of our spirit days called Wacky Wednesdays.  Each Wednesday we will be doing something different to show our school spirit. Stay tuned to see what we will do for next Wednesday!