Visitors to our Garden

Today, instead of buddy reading, we did buddy writing  with Tui 1 (Year 4)  students after inviting them to look in our  garden.  Our class taught Tui 1 about caterpillars and butterflies. Here are some of the stories our class wrote with our buddies.

Our Story

We saw a chrysalis, and we saw one that had fallen down. We learned how to thread a fallen chrysalis and peg it to a container. They put a tissue so that if the chrysalis fell down it would land softly. 

We learned ways that a caterpillar could get a disease. We learned about how a chrysalis gets stuck to a branch or a leaf. We were allowed to bring two chrysalises and a caterpillar  back to Tui 1 with us. 

 

We learned that when a caterpillar is born it has to eat lots. We saw two baby caterpillars. We also saw a caterpillar trying to eat a stalk. 

We learned the cycle of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. We learned to tell a male butterfly from a female butterfly. We also learned that pray mantises and paper wasps eat caterpillars.

Written by Jess, Maddi, and Hannah.

 

Some of the butterflies' and caterpillars' predators are praying mantises. First the praying mantis hunts its prey, then it makes sure it doesn’t escape.  Then it attacks it and then it eats it. Another predator of the caterpillars and butterflies  are the paper Wasps.  The wasps hunts the caterpillars down then it stings it to kill it and then it eats it.

Latrey 

Caterpillars are black, white and yellow and they can die easily. They turn into a chrysalis and then they turn into a butterfly.Then they lay eggs and then fly to a better place.Then they lay more. The monarch butterfly lays about 300 - 400 eggs in maximum*.The caterpillars eat lots and lots of leaves and then when they get older they turn into a chrysalis. Lots of people get mixed up with a male butterfly and a female butterfly. It is easy to tell because the male butterfly has dark spots on its back but the female butterfly doesn’t have these dark spots.The male butterfly does not lay eggs.

* to be researched further.

Jackie

Firstly the monarch butterfly starts out as a 1.2 mm size egg that another butterfly lays. After three or four days the egg hatches into a tiny little caterpillar. Once the caterpillar has been eating swan plant leaves for a week or so it is ready to turn into a chrysalis. First the caterpillar turns like an upside down spiral, then a green shade covers it up then it turns into a chrysalis, then it turns into a beautiful butterfly.

By Trent and Cameron 

 Things we have discovered this week: 

This is the egg case (ootheca) of a South African praying mantis.

These are not the ootheca of South African (or any) praying mantises. They are, in fact, used  bubble gum left on a post in our garden.  Yuck! But, from a distance, it had us fooled for a while. We now know the difference.

Some caterpillars will die of disease.

Other recent visitors to our garden:

The bees are enjoying our garden

Aphids and ants on our busy Lizzy plants. Lady birds won't be too far away.

Another caterpillar to identify.

Can you see a green caterpillar on the swan plant? It's a cabbage butterfly caterpillar, after Mrs Hansen's class's newly planted cabbage plants, no doubt. We have seen a few white butterflies around the place.

We need to identify what kind of caterpillar this is. A student from another class found it and brought it to show us. 

Can you find the fly on the leaf?