It's B Week!

We have been introduced to Mr. Beautiful Buttons, learned our blue color word song, and are coming up with lots of Bb words! I borrowed this link from Ms. Martindale because we enjoyed it so much and the kids enjoyed exploring the Bb playlist at the bottom. They love the bubble song! Click on the big B or any b within this post to watch, learn, and play! Have fun!

Picture Day

Wednesday, October 7th is picture day! Check out the website for more information. We will be having our pictures taken first thing in the morning- not too much time to get dirty!

Two More Buttterflies ...... More Girls!

This little girl decided to come out before the kids got to school on Monday. It was a nice surprise for them!

We had been watching the darkening chrysalis all day Tuesday and all morning on Wednesday. Wouldn't you know it.... she waited to come out between the time I walked the kids to lunch and came back to the room- no more than 5 minutes! Notice how crumpled she still is- we watched her pump her wings and could see her wings get bigger and her abdomen get smaller. We have another chrysalis starting to darken.... tomorrow maybe?

It was an exciting day in kindergarten today (Tuesday the 29th)! Mr. Jack Little came and talked to us about the Monarch butterflies (He is the man who donated the caterpillars to us). He showed us how he tags the Monarchs and releases them. He raises them in his greenhouse. He tagged some of the butterflies from the kindergarten classes and answered some of our questions. We used the Elmo and we could see him put on the little tags...that looked like little stickers, on the wings of the butterflies. He kept track of the numbers on the tags, if it was a boy or a girl and also our release location. Locals in Mexico collect the tags and are paid 5 pecos per tag. We can't wait to see if any of our butterflies make it to Mexico!Keep your fingers crossed! Thank you Mr. Little!

A Baby Girl Butterfly!

This is what our chrysalis looked like during open house! We were so hoping it would come out then but it must have been a little shy so......

..... it decided to come out during the night!

We were so exited when we came in the next morning to discover it was a girl too! We can tell it is a girl because she doesn't have spots on her wings. She drank some apple cider from my finger and we all enjoyed watching her getting stronger throughout the day. It was a lovely afternoon so we decided to let her go so she could start her long journey to Mexico. Hopefully she'll make it! We still have 7 more chrysalises to go so maybe we will get to see one of them!

Monday, September 21, 2009 Pinwheels for Peace Project

We started our day today by placing our pinwheels in the lawn right in front of the school for the "Pinwheels for Peace Project." This was an art project that began in 2005 by 2 Art teachers in Florida and has quickly spread worldwide. September 21st is the International Day of Peace and the kids were excited to all the pinwheels the school had made. They were even more excited when ours actually started to spin! :) They all looked great! You can learn more about the project at http://pinwheelsforpeace.com

Monarch Caterpillars

We came in this morning very excited to find another one of our caterpillars in a 'J' and five of the other six caterpillars circling around the top looking for the perfect spot. We were really hoping to be able to watch it change into its chrysalis and kept a close eye on it throughout the day but it didn't happen. By the end of the day, two of the caterpillars were in their 'J' form and all the others were in what looked like their perfect spots, because they hadn't moved in a couple of hours. Guess they decided to wait until everyone left for the day because just as my daughter Kaitlyn and I were about to leave, one of them decided to transform into its chrysalis. It was truly an amazing sight and I immediately grabbed my camera. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture without the reflection of the net. Luckily Ms. Martindale and Mrs. Engels were still there and helped me open the net to get a few pictures. It was so cool! I guarantee by Monday morning we will have 8 beautiful green and gold chrysalises! Let's hope for a good outcome for them all!