Tag Archives: butterflies

life cycles, Literacy, nature

Cart Mill Caterpillar Centre 🐛🦋

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Each year at Cart Mill we like to learn about the lifecycle of butterflies and what better way than a hands on experience. We ordered caterpillars and they arrived on the 10th of May, we have been recording their growth each day since. They can grow up to ten times their size before forming a chrysalis. Look at how they changed each day..

This morning we arrived at nursery to discover many of the caterpillars had formed their chrysalides over the weekend. One of them was forming theirs at the exact moment we checked on them, it was amazing to watch! So we thought we best start learning about the next stages of the lifecycle. We looked through the information handbook and we also read the story of The Hungry Caterpillar.


“A butterfly.”


“Butterflies come from caterpillars.”

We also watched the short video of The Hungry Caterpillar as a treat. Afterwards, I asked the children what they could tell me about caterpillars and butterflies..

”They live on trees and eat leaves.”

”They make a raccoon.”

”He turns green.”

”Butterflies need to flap their wings.”

The metamorphosis process takes 7-10 days so we could see some butterflies before the holiday weekend 🤞🦋

UNCRC Article 28- every child has the right to an education.

UNCRC Article 29- education must encourage the child’s respect for the environment.

Outdoor Learning

Butterflies!

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The children have really loved following the journey of our nursery butterflies. They have now hatched and will soon be ready to be released. Today in the garden we were looking again at the life cycle of the butterfly.

The children are now very familiar with butterflies and wanted to make their own. We decided to use our loose parts for our creations.

We discussed the parts of a butterfly and decided to use the pipe cleaners as the bodies! The children then used all the different materials to design their own butterflies!.



“Both wings need to match!”

”I want my butterfly as a pet!”

”Mine has lots of colours,”

I think you will agree that our finished butterflies are fantastic!

It got so hot in the garden today that we came in to cool down and we watched ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story with ice poles!! They were yummy in this heat!

Article 31 – you have the right to play and rest.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Introducing Cart Mill’s butterfly family 🐛🦋

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On the 1st of June our caterpillars arrived at the centre and we have been doing a great job of helping to care for them each day since. We started by investigating the caterpillars 🐛 we watched how they wiggled when they walked and counted how many feet they have; can you believe they have fourteen?!
We watched as they ate their food and got bigger and bigger. They have to shed their exoskeleton in order to grow and we got to feel it, it was very fluffy! Then when we came back after the weekend they had formed their chrysalides! We learned that butterflies come from a chrysalis and it is moths that come from a cocoon.

“They’re so hairy.” “I have caterpillars in my garden.” “Argh, they’re wobbling!”

The chrysalides shook as we transferred them to the butterfly net and we found out that they do this to scare off predators. Next we had to prepare for the butterflies emerging.

“I think they like the nectar.”

When the first butterfly came out from his chrysalis we prepared sugar water for him to drink and put it on some flowers. We also cut juicy oranges and placed them in the net. We learned that butterflies use their feet to taste their food and their mouth is like a curly straw; they unfurl it to drink and then curl it back up again when finished. We now have five butterflies and we have named them Ozar, Mo, Flutter, Anna and Ruby.

“It goes round and round and round.” “I’m colouring my butterfly’s wings.”

After watching the process of the caterpillars changing to butterflies, we were inspired to create our own version of the lifecycle.

Then this morning it was time to let them go….

We started by putting sugar water and oranges on the butterfly table we had previously made with Lauren. Then we opened the butterfly net and waited. And waited 😆 The butterflies were a little hesitant to come out but when they made an appearance they wanted to get up close and personal. One of them landed on the jacket to get a quick cuddle before flying off and the other let us have a turn of holding him.