Whole School Science Project
We've got caterpillars! UPDATE: We now have chrysalides! UPDATE: We have butterflies!
Follow the blog below to see what happens in our observational investigation. Have a go at answering the questions too.
Day 1: The caterpillars are less than 1cm long and are growing inside their little self-contained pot.
Day 4: The caterpillars have now doubled in size. They are no longer trying to hide and are very wriggly. They are now surrounded by lots of silk webbing.
Day 6: The caterpillars are starting to find a space to hang, with 3 of them already holding on to the lid of the container. We have now named 2 more caterpillars - say hello to Fluffy Fred and Muppet.
Day 7: The caterpillars are now HUGE! At approximately 3cm long they are starting to shed some of their old exoskeleton, leaving little parts of caterpillar all over the container. We have now named all of the caterpillars: Little Legs, Tickle, Fluffy Fred, Muppet and Kate-er-pillar!
Day 11: The caterpillars are no longer caterpillars - they are chrysalides! They grew to 10 times their original size before climbing to the top of the container to pupate (become chrysalides). We now need to leave them undisturbed for 3 days before moving them to their new butterfly habitat. During this time they will harden, and may do one final exoskeleton moult.
Day 13: The caterpillars have now been moved onto the chrysalis station and nearly all of them have completed their final moult.
Day 21 - 09:21: Our first butterfly has transformed! Little Legs has broken out of his cocoon and we ar waiting to see what colour his wings develop in to.
Day 21 - 10:45: Muppet has also broken out of her cocoon.
Day 21 - 13:52: Tickle has now joined too. Watch the clip below to see her hatch - it's 5 minutes long and a bit difficult to see through the mesh - but enjoy!
Day 22: All of the butterflies are now out of their cocoons - just a few days until we have to set them free. We are giving them sugar water dripped on to flowers to encourage them to find their own food once released.
Useful Science Websites
- WOW Science: Science activities and games for children. https://wowscience.co.uk/
- Explorify, https://explorify.wellcome.ac.uk/. Parents you can do one Explorify activity a day with the children. Remember to mark each activity that you do as 'done' to unlock more activities.
- Reach Out Reporter, https://www.reachoutreporter.com/. Reach Out Reporter is a free weekly science news programme for primary aged children. You could watch it each week. The website has lots of suggestions for how to use the news bulletins to spark science conversations.
- Royal Institution Experimental https://www.rigb.org/families/experimental This is a dedicated website for home science activities which are fun and easy to do.
- Free mini-beast Spotting guides:: Explore Nature, https://www.opalexplorenature.org/
- Garden or wood Activities: Woodland Trust's 'Trees for Schools' http://treetoolsforschools.org.uk/menu/?_ga=2.146391348.1461780378.1584897294-1414910273.1584897294
Step into the NHS- KS2 Project
On Thursday 2nd April at 8pm there was another 'clap for the NHS’. Did you go outside and clap for the NHS?
Here we have a great opportunity to get children to learn more about the NHS, what it does and how in future they might work for this amazing organisation.
https://www.stepintothenhs.nhs.uk/primary-schools/KS2-resources
