Butterfly release

Releasing our butterflies: Junior infants

All of our five coccoons hatched and it was time to set our butterflies free!

Painted Lady baby caterpillars

Our newest cocoon

Confused about the difference between moths and butterflies? cocoons, chrysalis and pupa?

Try out this site http://www.bugs.org/bugquiz/answers/butterfly_moth.shtml

Hope this helps.

Teacher's new caterpillar

 Monday, December 19th, 2011

Teacher found a very green caterpillar outside on the frosty step.  She has rescued it, and we will look after it in school and give it nice leaves to eat and water to drink.  Hopefully it will turn into a healthy moth (or butterfly).

Congratulations

Great news:  Our school website has received a nomination for an Eircom Junior Spider award!
Read about the Junior Spiders at http://www.juniorspiders.ie/.  These awards are awarded at a national level to schools at primary and post primary level, and we are very honoured to be shortlisted for this award.
Well done to all teachers and students who keep our website up-to-date and looking interesting and colourful.
Well done to all parents, families, students and teachers who use our website to keep in touch with what happens on a day to day basis at school, and who use the links to continue learning at home.

More great news:  Not only did we receive a nomination for our school website, but we also received two more nominations in the Best School Project category:  One of these is for Our Butterfly page of the website http://scoilchaitrionajnrbutterfly.blogspot.com/ , and the other is for Ms. McLoughlin's page of the website http://scoilchaitrionajnrmsmcloughlin.blogspot.com/ .

We wish the very best of luck to our team of teachers and students who will travel to the Helix in Dublin on December 13th to represent our school at the award ceremony.  We hope they wow everyone with their stands, showing other schools how we use our website and project pages and how easy it is to learn lots when using these websites.

Butterfly eggs

Teacher saw a Cabbage White butterfly laying eggs on a cabbage leaf in her garden.

The eggs were orange and they were tiny.  There were about 60 of them altogether.  She brought the leaf with the eggs to school with her, and we all had a look at them.

When we came to school today we noticed that the eggs had changed.  Now they are the smallest caterpillars we have ever seen, little transparent squiggles with a black head on each one.  There is a tiny hole in the cabbage leaf where the tiny caterpillars have eaten it.  We hope these caterpillars will grow and change into beautiful Cabbage White butterflies like their mother!

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Our caterpillars are growing so fast, every day!

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Look at how much they have grown, and how few of them there are now!

Friday, September 16th, 2011

We don't need a magnifying glass to see our caterpillars now.  They are growing fast, and they are eating lots.

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Growing so much, even over the weekend.  We can't believe how much they eat now.

Thursday, 22nd September

 Our caterpillars have grown too big for their skins, which they shed last night.

Here is a photo of the caterpillar skins, stuck to the side of the container.

Our bigger caterpillars look really healthy and happy.

Monday, 26th September

Teacher was watching the caterpillars eating the leaves.  They eat such a lot each day.

A little snail joined the caterpillars on the cabbage leaves today.

Monday, 3rd October 2011

Over the weekend most of our caterpillars died (teacher can't figure out why).

The remaining 3 caterpillars spun cocoons and will wait for the warmer weather before they emerge as beautiful White Cabbage butterflies.

The green cocoons are White Cabbage butterfly cocoons, but the two brown cocoons are much smaller.  Teacher found them under a wall at her home.  We wonder what type of butterflies will emerge from these cocoons.  Sleep tight butterflies, we'll see you in the Spring!!