Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Chrysalides

We have been watching our caterpillars eat and grow for the past 3 weeks, much longer than it should have been.  Generally it takes a Painted Lady caterpillar 7 to 10 days to go from egg to chrysalis but it has been colder than average here and that is why we think it has taken them much longer.

 
We've been active at the art table making many caterpillar and butterfly arts and crafts.  This one is a traditional egg carton caterpillar.  When they were dry I put them in brown paper bags and hung them in our room by our caterpillar display.  Now that the real caterpillars are in their chrysalis our paper ones will start to break open and previously made butterflies will emerge.
 I created this play invitation for the children to experience caterpillars going in and butterflies coming out.
 The felt chrysalis also found their way into our bug play.


We are excited to continue to watch the chrysalis to see signs of the butterflies ready to emerge.