Our Caterpillar Weekend!

On Friday as I was getting ready to go home I realized I should take the caterpillars home. They were getting so big and it's a 3 day weekend. I knew many, if not all of them would go into their chrysalids and I didn't want to miss it! It's too bad all of you aren't here with me to watch this amazing transformation. Not to worry, we are catching them in photo and video when we can! Here are some we have so far.

GIANT, pretty, moth!

There was a flurry of excitement as the students gathered around this giant moth on the playground. Three of them ran inside to get me and a camera, I am glad they found me! I have never seen something so big and beautiful. I always think of moths as the little, brown ones that flutter around the lights outside. The boys that came to get me with the camera earlier just came with a book. They found the caterpillar and moth when they got to class! It is called the Cecropia Moth and is the largest caterpillar in Canada and the US. It can grow to 10 cm as a caterpillar and be very fat. The caterpillar eats many different tree leaves such as lilac, apple, ash and cherry. We have lots of lilac trees around our playground, maybe that is where it came from!
Check this out!

 

 

 

This is my adult hand!

 

 

 

Time Lapse Video

Last weekend while I had the caterpillars at home, I tried out time lapse photography/video. I set up my dslr camera with a caterpillar that was ready to go into chrysalis and let it got all night, taking a photo every minute and a half. When I woke up I was excited to see how it turned out...the caterpillar was still hanging there and the camera battery had died half way through the night. So, I charged the battery and set it up again through the day. This time it worked! I caught the caterpillar going into his chrysalis. The lesson this time was that the photos needed to be closer together. Regardless, I made it into a video. You will notice that the caterpillar very quickly changes, this is because it happened in a matter of 5 minutes which was only a few photos.

I also found an app that makes this process WAY easier. Of course. It is called iTimelapse and it costs $1.99. Worth every penny! You follow all the steps and the app takes the photos and puts them together (renders them) into a video. You can watch the video right there or share it in a variety of ways. Of course my class thought this was as awesome as I did so we tried it at the beginning of their gym class. This video is of them having their free time warm up and then settling in to their squads.

I am planning to catch the process of the butterfly emerging using this process as soon as they are ready! Stay tuned :)

- Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Weekend Caterpillar Invasion

What a crazy caterpillar weekend! As you know, we have hundreds of caterpillars. We had to buy plants to feed them because they were running out of food. On Friday, I took a bunch home with another net to transfer them into for space and feeding. On Friday evening I moved them all into their cozy, new home. Early Saturday morning I was up to get Emily a bottle, I took one step into the kitchen and noticed something on the floor. I flicked on the light and {*sigh} there were about 10 caterpillars crawling all over the kitchen! I quickly scooped them up and put them back in their net. Then I noticed some on the counter, climbing the cupboards, much farther away in the dining and living rooms and even one all the way downstairs in the basement! Sheesh! Thank goodness I noticed when Emily found a few before she was able to get them in her mouth or squeeze them too hard.

I fixed up their net to make it more secure, and hopefully escape-proof. No such luck! Through the weekend I continued to find caterpillars here and there. I even found one attached to a thank-you card that eventually went into his chrysalis.

I went to school early this morning to get some work done. When I arrived, the caterpillars there needed new plants to munch on so I started dealing with them. As I walked down the hall to our classroom, I saw a caterpillar crawling down the HALLWAY! Upon closer examination, there were about 5 in the hallway and 10 in the classroom, inching their way around. Once the children arrived and heard there had been an escape mission, they scoured the classroom and found a few more, including 2 hanging in chrysalids from tables and 2 chrysalids in the middle of the floor! Geez Louise!

Things are back under control now and everyone is safe in a place. That is, until the chrysalids around the room start emerging and we have to chase down loose butterflies!

Their new home, before it went into lockdown mode with tape and numerous clothespins.

The first escapee - notice his friends further along the floor.

This guy made down three steps and was headed out the door.

In the bathroom...

The first escapees I found, I thought THIS was a lot. I also thought I had caught them all. Silly me.

In the kleenex.

Now that is talent. Climbing the wall!

When Emily got up there were a couple more out, looking for a challenge. She won, easily!

Point, Emily.

Later in the afternoon, this is clear across the house.

All the way downstairs in the basement on some smelly socks!

This guy hid from me long enough to attach to this card. This is where he remains, in his chrysalis. It will be a nice surprise when he emerges as a butterfly and wakes us up!

I was able to watch this one change from caterpillar to chrysalis! LIVE!

This morning at school, across the room, out the door and two classrooms away from his net!

Sneaky, this guy attached to the baseboard. Great hiding spot!

A chrysalis on a table.

And another table.

Caterpillars - day 6

they are big and they pop and eat a lot. Hag from the top of the lid and move the poop so get the food. There heads come off. The spikes on their backs are pointy. We have had them for 6 days, one more day and it will be a week.
-Tyler

THANK YOU!

Today we got a very exciting and surprising piece of mail from our friends down the street in Ms. Malkoske's Class! They made us nets for our caterpillars! It arrived just in time because our caterpillars are getting SO BIG! We think they might start going to chrysalids before the weekend.

I think it was really kind of you and your class to take your time to make it for us.  -Elisa

I think it was really nice of you and everybody likes the butterfly nets. -Katrina

When we got the caterpillar nets, we hung them up from the ceiling. -Carter L

Thank-you for the butterfly net. weil  uos it as sonyas we get butterflys.-Olivia

We really like the butterfly net you gave us. We are going to use it as soon as we get chrysalids. -Alexa

I like the butterfly net. by Tyler.

Thank-you for the butterfly net. I hope we get to use it. I like the green and blue plates with the polka dots. -Laine

I hope our butterflies will like to stay there until all the caterpillars are butterflies. -Iain

How did you make the butterfly nets? -Paige

When did you start making the butterfly nets? -carter V

How long did it take you to make the butterfly nets? -Olivia

How did you get the idea to make the nets? -Carter V

It's cool how you made the butterfly nets because it looks perfect on the ceiling. -Rebecca

We are going to do something kind to another person to pay it forward. -Iain

Ms. Malkoske's class told us they do random acts of kindness for other people. We really liked this idea. We talked about what this means and decided that we should thank Ms. Malkoske's class and then pay it forward by doing a random act of kindness for someone else. We talked about how this doesn't need to be a great big gesture of kindness but could be as simple as holding the door open for someone, saying "goodbye, have a nice evening" or drawing a picture. So, thanks to the children of room 9 not only for the butterfly nets but for spreading kindness. Your kindness will now be spread even further as we pay it forward!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Watching Animals LIVE!

We are live streaming our caterpillars again, you can see the feed along the right side of our blog. As in past years, there are many other animals to watch live online using sites like livestream and ustream. Some popular ones are the Decorah Eagles and the Peregrine Falcons that nest in downtown Winnipeg. The Peregrine Falcon cam will be live from Winnipeg on May 15, 2013.

I also just found an active Eagle nest in Minnesota! There are two eaglets in this nest that hatched 3.5 weeks ago. They have not left the nest yet. Today in their nest there is half a fish they are feasting on!

We will keep tabs on these live streaming animals and typically check in on them each day as we come back after lunch. Watching them sparks some very interesting conversations and learning. For example, today we noticed that the eagle nest looks pretty big. We looked up facts on eagles nests and found that they can be 2 metres wide! That is taller than the children in our class and bigger than the tables we sit at! We also read that eagles nests can be as deep as 4 metres which is higher than our classroom roof. We aren't sure if that is true and need to look into it a little further.

Have a great weekend!
-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)