Our caterpillars 2015

Our caterpillars arrived by post last Monday, the 18th of May.
Last week our caterpillars were exactly like the caterpillars in the song:

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

There's a tiny caterpillar, a tiny caterpillar

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

This week (May 25th) they are like the second verse:

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

There's a big fat caterpillar, a big fat caterpillar

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

Our caterpillars at 2 weeks (June 3rd)

Our first cocoon (June 4th)

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

The caterpillar spins, the caterpillar spins

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

One of our 5 caterpillars is now in its cocoon.
Cocoons in our butterfly garden: (June 9th)

All 5 of our caterpillars are now in their cocoons.

We gave each cocoon a name before transferring it to our butterfly garden.

We can't wait for all of our cocoons to emerge as beautiful Painted Lady butterflies.

Releasing the butterflies

 We released our butterflies today.
It is EXACTLY 5 weeks since we got our caterpillars in the post.

We were so sorry to see them fly away but we are so happy that they are free to enjoy this lovely sunshine.

We hope they are happy and that they lay lots of little eggs so their lifecycle can begin all over again.

5 pretty butterflies

All 5 of our butterflies are out of their cocoons at last.

We are thrilled.

We will let them fly away tomorrow.

 Our Painted Lady butterflies are so pretty.

Don't worry about the red spots, they are not blood, that is just left over colouring from their wings!

We have a butterfly!

After 4 weeks and 3 days...............

............ Sparks has arrived!

He is the very first of our butterflies to emerge from his cocoon.

We are so proud of him.

Now his cocoon looks very empty.

 We have left some banana, some apple and some sugared water for Sparks to drink over the weekend.

We hope his friends will emerge from their cocoons too.

Cocoons at last

3 weeks after our butterflies arrived in our classroom they are now all in cocoons.

We have five beautiful cocoons.

We gave each a name.

Then we put them on card and put them into our butterfly garden.

We notice that Sparks is the smallest, and Rainbow is the biggest.

We are looking forward to seeing our beautiful Painted Lady butterflies.

Caterpillars ready to spin cocoons

Our caterpillars are now staying right at the top of their jar.

We think they are very close to spinning their cocoons now.

Bigger caterpillars after 2 weeks

Remember the caterpillars that arrived exactly two weeks ago.

Look at how big they have become.