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5 butterflies emerged today 🐛

To make way for our rainforest art these have had to come down, you can see them live when sent home next week but here’s a sneak peak at our amazing artists work.  They printed a picture, then chose to draw it using 3 of : chalk, oil  pastel, pencil, crayon or pen as we were exploring different  materials for our topic.

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Yesterday our chrysalises were  transferred over to their new habitat where they will be able to have enough space to form into butterflies.  The instructions say they’ll change within 7-14 days of the chrysalis forming so it could  happen  any day now!

Who was your favourite character?

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The one we were waiting for who was still busy eating yesterday formed into the classic ‘j’ shape today and began forming into a chrysalis.

Just in case…P3 homework 14

Can you also collect milk/juice bottle tops for us to turn into rainforest bugs.  Thanks.

Over the weekend nearly all the caterpillars finished growing and climbed to the top of their cups. We still have one very hungry caterpillar munching away :).

Most are hanging from the lid and will/have shed their exoskeletons one last time (5x in total) before they pupate (become chrysalides).

The pupa underneath will wriggle out of this skin, forcing the empty caterpillar skin up and away from itself.  The pupae is light green with the lower body similar to a smooth caterpillar.  The detailed parts will flatten into a more smooth and hard chrysalis enclosure.

They will not be disturbed for at least two or three days to allow them to safely harden into chrysalides.

On the 25th of April we gave a very excited and slightly worried welcome to 36 caterpillars who had travelled through the post to be with us.  They arrived in a broken plastic tub with a hole big enough for them to have escaped…luckily they must have been too sleepy to go wandering around or out of the box (we hope!) so we quickly put them into their individual cups with food and air holes, gave them names and started to watch them grow.

Here is a before and after picture to show just how much they have grown in 10 days:

They are eating, spinning silk and growing.  They will shed their exoskeleton four times and grow more than 10 times their original size!

Keep following the blog to find out what happens next 🙂

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Enjoy these “before” pictures, the displays are in the process of changing to our new rainforest topic.