TASC: Lifecycle of a Butterfly

In science, we have been busy learning about lifecycles and we enjoyed it so much that Miss Varley set us a task and we used TASC to help us to do this.

Task: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding about the life cycle of a butterfly.

Here is what we did:

We were so proud of each other for the work that we had completed that we invited Onyx class to come and have a look as we know that they have been learning about life cycles as well.

We even displayed our work in the classroom for our adults to see in a morning when they came into the classroom.

Eggs… to Ducklings…

We have also been learning about the life cycle of a duck as well in Science and we have been glued to the incubator in class watching and waiting for a small change in the eggs.

Eggs need to put in an incubator to help keep them warm and needs to be kept at a constant temperature of 37.5 degrees. We made a calendar to keep track of the eggs but Miss Varley miscalculated the hatching of the eggs by a week, getting them confused with chicken’s eggs.

Duck eggs take around 26-31 days to hatch whereas a chicken’s egg is much shorter at 21 days. We made sure that we put water in the incubator every 3 days to keep the humidity at the same level.

After a couple of days of being in the incubator, we used a special egg torch to shine a light through the eggs to see if the egg had fertilised yet. We saw a small red spot underneath the shell and veins had started to appear. We had baby ducklings on the way!

After a few weeks, we noticed that one of the eggs had started to crack and hatch out of the egg. It is a tiring process, hatching out of the egg but eventually we had our first duckling. We took a class vote and named the first duckling ‘Puddle’. The class decided that the rest of the names has to follow a theme and they chose water related names.

It wasn’t long until we had duckling number 2 and 3 to join Puddle. They were named Bubble and Splash and enjoyed meeting the children and exploring the water for the first time. They need to be kept warm in a special hatcher to help their soft, downy feathers to dry out and stay fluffy.

Miss Varley managed to catch duckling 4 and 5 hatching out of their egg. The blood that you can see is the veins from the eggs and not from the duckling at all. We named the new ducklings Raindrop and Pearl.

Do you notice that not all the ducklings are the same? Some are yellow and some are a lot darker in colour. This is because they are two different kinds. The children were set the challenge in researching for their homework what kind of ducklings we had. Have you found the answer yet? Check the comments section for the answer in a couple of days. Which duckling is your favourite?  We have loved having the ducklings in class with us. Some of the class keep chickens at home and have offered our ducklings a home so we hope to keep you updated with their progress soon.

What we have been learning about:

• How to handle ducklings
• How to care for ducklings
• The life cycle of an egg
• Keeping a calendar to track progress
• Different parts of a duckling

What you could do to support your child at home:

• Research the type of duckling we have
• Visit a farm or zoo to see different life cycles in process

Caterpillars to Butteflies

In Science we have been learning about life cycles. We have learnt that a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly after a few weeks and we were lucky to see that transformation for ourselves!

After the caterpillars were in their chrysalises for around a week, they began to emerge and they were no longer caterpillars. They had turned into beautiful butterflies. They are called ‘Painted Lady Butterflies’ and they have symmetrical patterns on their wings. They are red and black.

We released them around our school grounds and we hope that we see them fluttering around the school garden and hopefully they will lay some eggs eggs so that the life cycle can start again!

 

Life Cycles

This half term, we are learning all about life cycles in Science. We already know about the human life cycle and about the life cycle of a seed to a sunflower so we decided to learn the life cycles of some other animals.

We were very surprised when Miss Varley brought not one but two surprises in our classroom this week.

First we got some caterpillars after learning about how they transform into butterflies.

They may look tiny now but just wait a few weeks. We bet they don’t stay like that for long!

Our second surprise was this:

EGGS!!!!!!!

Miss Varley won’t tell us what kind of eggs these are but we know they definitely came from a farm. What kind of eggs do you think they are? Why don’t you comment below to let us know. We can’t wait until they have hatched!

Our suggestions so far include a chick, a duckling and a gosling. What do you think?

What you could do at home:

• Talk to your child about what a life cycle is.
• Match the names of adult animals to their babies.
• Visit a farm or zoo to see animals and their babies.