All butterflies have hatched

The last of the butterflies hatched yesterday. It was amazing to see how black the chrysalises had become in one day.

 Of course two waited until we were at lunch and the last until we were out of the room again practising our assembly to hatch.

There were two more boys..

and a girl.

Kiwi Writing

We have been working on adding hooks to our writing.  A hook is an interesting start to our writing which will make the reader want to keep reading more.

 An amazing author whipped this piece of writing up today.  

Our Kiwi Art is here!

We have been learning a lot about our native bird the kiwi.  We have watched movie clips, read books and listened to stories about kiwi living near Mrs Pendergrast's farm in Otanewainuku.  One day Mrs Pendergrast even had a kiwi in her garage!  She got to hold onto it while the transmitter was changed on its leg.  It had very strong legs and wasn't too happy about being awake during the day.

As we looked at some kiwi pictures and thought about all the things we have learnt about the kiwi, we drew and coloured our own kiwi.  What do you think?

They were boys

The butterflies flew away at lunchtime after exercising their wings all morning. We managed to get a shot of them before they took off, can you see the black dot on near the bottom of the wings?  That shows it is a boy butterfly.

Look! Butterflies!

We came into class today and what did we see.... two of our butterflies have hatched. They are letting their wings dry.  We hope to see if they are a girl or a boy shortly. We will keep you posted.

 

Visiting Frog

Look at the colourful visitor who spent two days in our class.

He has now been returned to his natural habitat.

Monarch Caterpillars

Mrs Benge brought in a swan plant from home that had some caterpillars on it.  We watched them grow quickly.  One morning we came back to see two had already transformed into chrysalises.

We watched some of the other caterpillars attach themselves to the leaves and branches.  They hung there for a whole day. We hoped to see them transform but they were still hanging when we went home. Mrs Benge came back from a meeting to see one had just changed so she stayed and worked hoping to see the next one change.

Ready and waiting to turn
 into a chrysalis

The sneaky caterpillar waited
until Mrs Benge was busy...

Look at the shape changing

Nearly there...

This is what the caterpillars look like when they
change.  The skin peels off. The caterpillar moves
and wiggles alot when this happens.

Watch the caterpillar moving.

We hope to see our caterpillars hatch into beautiful butterflies soon.