With Spring upon us, our room has become a place of birth and transformation. Along with our bird study, we are also interested in other creatures that come from eggs. One of our students donated a butterfly habitat complete with five Painted Lady caterpillars. They arrived yesterday evening, and have been a big part of play this morning.
We had them sitting on the art table so that children could observe them in small groups. The first group of children that noticed them fell instantly in love. They had many questions.
- “Why do they look so poisonous?”
- “Can we pet them?”
- “Can I go get them some leaves so they have something to eat?”
- “Will they be butterflies today?”
- “Why aren’t they moving?”
- “Do butterflies look the same as they d0 when they were caterpillars?”
After some discussion, we realized that a few of the children thought they might be poisonous because of the hairs that stand up along their bodies. We assured them that we would never allow a poisonous creature to live in our classroom. The children thought it was quite ridiculous that the caterpillar was simply hairy. Through a round of giggles, they decided that the butterflies would be hilariously covered with hair, as well. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with that hypothesis.
