THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

Almost anyone knows that caterpillars turn into butterfly, many children are aware of this thanks to Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"...but how many of us has actually seen a caterpillar turning into a butterfly? I haven't!
Now, I had this idea in my mind since I saw a children's book that explained how to make a caterpillars' house and how to care for them to see them turning into butterflies. I thought it would be very interesting if we could do that.
It took a while before we found a caterpillar: we went hunting in parks and fields, but no sign of caterpillars. I read somewhere that caterpillars like parsley, and I thought to give it a go because I was becoming quite eager to find one. If all failed, I was thinking to buy them from Insectlore, which are expensive but come with their house and food plus a cilindrical shape net where to put them when they are crysalids and then keep the butterflies for a few days.
then one morning, by chance I found one on a leaf of a bush in front of the bulding door...then I lifted my eyes and there were other 2 hairy ones...another one was a very tiny green hearless one! I rushed inside, took a plastic box, called my daughter to come and see! We collected them and a good bunch of leaves and took them inside. Then I made a home for them.
A few days leater I found two eating my flowers! Now we have 6 caterpillars!

HOW TO MAKE THE HOUSE

- a big plastic box or a old fish tank
- a small conteiner to put the leaves and some water to keep them fresh
- the leaves from the plant you found the caterpillars on (it is most probably their food plant)
- some soil
- 2-3 sticks
- a muslin or a paper tissue pierced to make air passing through




Do not touch the caterpillars with your bare hands, some can give a rush! Always use the leaf they are on to move them, or touch them with a leaf on their back and they will move forward.
make sure that the container with the water for the leaves isn't too big, cover all the spaces with some cotton wool or tissue paper to avoid any caterpillar falling into the water.
Some caterpillars make a pupa on a branch (that will be your stick) others under ground (that is your soil)
put the soil in the box, then the container with the leaves + caterpillars and then the sticks. Cover it with a muslin or a paper tissue.
Make sure you do not expose the caterpillar to the hot sun. they like the shade.








You will see lots of droppings and some pieces of skins on the leaves or on the soil. that's because every time they grow they also outgrow their skins and need to replace it!
Replace the leaves when the caterpillars have eaten most of them, or they wither.

Have a good time observing them!

planting mania

After the success of the daffodils, me and M. decided to have a little flowers corner in the communal green area, which kept on expanding and so far we have put down 4 variety of flowers and around 30-35 bulbs! The experience of growing flowers made us so excited that we moved to sowing vegetables and herbs: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach and basil.
Every morning M. goes to have a look to all these pots and she calls me so enthusiastically to come and see a new leave, or something new from the ground. She is also in charge of watering all of them.
She is doing so much learning about the environment she is part of. It is good thing children learn a bit about gardening and growing plants, because this gives them a sense of pride and responsability,more over it instills in them respect for the environment and all living things. She also learns about the life cycle of flowers and plants, where vegetable comes from, what they need to grow and all other related things.
I would like to now plant some strawberries because she will be able to eat the fruit of her work!



Relating to sowing and planting is the little project started this late autumn by planting the daffodils bulbs. we follow their growth throughtout the winter, from small leaves coming out from the ground, to blossoms and then beautiful flowers. For all these transformation I took a picture, to build the life cycle of a flower in photos. the last one was of the daffodils withering.
Now we have the all life cycle and M. can look at it and remembering all the growing the daffodils went through, she can also try and order all the phases from bulb to withering.

CUTTING WITH PURPOSE

M. is now a confident scissors user...no doubt.
Her level can now be raised with a new challenge: cut out things!
I tried to make her cut on a straight line that I had previously marked on a piece of paper, but was certainly boring for her, and probably didn't make sense.
I thought it would be more fun cutting out something she likes and then make her glue it somewhere.
It was a big success. I made her cut around characters or pretty things you find in toys boxes or card board (cardboard is simpler to cut than paper because it doesn't bend everywhere while you try to cut it!).



At the beginning she was cutting a way far from the actual thing.

but now she got much better, and really can get close enough.