How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly (cake)?

This term our whole school has been focusing on improving our recount writing. There are several types of recounts but the one we are working on in Huia 1 at the moment is a personal recount. Mrs Vincent 'modelled' some of the following recount using the data projector and explained why she chose the words she used - or why she made changes. Then, in groups, we wrote our own versions to complete the story and she summarised and edited them to create the final recount. When we re-read it together, we had to identify all the features which made this a recount- such as: orientation, events in chronological order, time words, past tense, conclusion, connecting words and conjunctions, as well as an interesting use of vocabulary.

We were not expecting yesterday to be particularly special, but a series of events happened which completely threw our daily plan out the window. Consequently, we think we ended up learning more than we would have done if Mrs Vincent had followed her plan.

Callum, Ben, Hoani, Wade and Matthew were representing our school at the Central Counties soccer tournament and Nikhil was absent so we couldn't do any testing because too many people were away. How disappointing! Meanwhile, a woman from Cambridge University in England came to survey the rest of Huia 1 and Kea 1 students to get information for her PhD research. It was the most gloriously warm and sunny autumn day - the kind that makes people want to say, "Isn't this just the most glorious day?" and expect everyone to agree with them. In comparison, our classroom was cold and dark and dull, so, after the survey, we joined Mrs Whitehead's class in a game of longball on the court until morning tea. It was a golden opportunity to make up for missing our P.E lesson the previous day. The tone of the day was set!

Morning tea was over and Mrs Vincent decided it was still far too perfect a day outside not to take advantage of this golden opportunity to learn more about our garden and its inhabitants. Caitlin and Krizelle were sent to select non-fiction library books about plants, weeds and insects and, with Ricki-Jean, they set out to identify the weeds in our garden. They discovered that black nightshade, creeping mallow and hawkesbeard were some of the weeds in our garden. We think it's hawkesbeard - although it could be a dandelion. Jakob took photos of the swan plants and Terence was observing an average everyday caterpillar household in the cabbage and broccoli plants in our school vegetable garden. He discovered that the average caterpillar produces a large amount of poo which gets trapped at the base of the cabbage leaves. Meanwhile, others researched the monarch butterfly life cycle on the computers. They found some fascinating You Tube sites showing the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.

After we discovered that the white butterfly and larvae were pests, some of the boys took up the interesting job of eliminating them. All of the boys tried to catch white butterflies and we learned how to kill them humanely so that they did not suffer. We collected the green caterpillars in a lunch box and instead of squashing them, we put the lunch box in the freezer to kill them humanely, and then gave them to Mrs Whitehead to take home for her chooks to eat.

At midday, a group were called away to have immunisation talks with the public health nurse and the rest of the class went to the library to choose picture books to read to Mrs Bradshaw's class after lunch. We abandoned our garden for a brief interlude of reading to the juniors - still outside in the early afternoon warmth- and then returned to complete our research and cabbage caterpillar cull.

Towards the end of the day, after Mrs Vincent decided it was all too noisy, we settled down to practise our recount writing skills in peace and quiet until the bell went at 2:50 p.m. Meanwhile, back at soccer, our team was undefeated. Our boys played non-stop with only one minute changeover times between games so they were shattered by the end of their tournament. They have now qualified for the Counties Zone tournament and we are very proud of them.

It was one of those days which we will probably remember every time we see a white butterfly or its green caterpillar - especially if we decide to grow cabbages in our own gardens. Mrs Whitehead reported that her chooks loved the caterpillars and we can look forward to some happy hen eggs early next term. Mrs Vincent suggested we could then make butterfly cakes to demonstrate the ultimate in recycling.


The irony of our recent experiences is that last week we were learning to save the lives of some caterpillars and butterflies and this week we learned to kill others.

"I wish I was here yesterday," said Nikhil.




(And now, watch this You Tube video about the life cycle of a butterfly - in Spanish. How much can you now understand?)