Monarch Butterflies

The season is upon us again when Monarch butterflies lay hundreds of eggs causing swan plants to be demolished by hungry little caterpillars. Only this year we have had hardly any caterpillars on our swan plants. This is due to the fact that wasps are eating the newly hatched caterpillars for their dinner. So knowing this, some of the children made it their mission to rescue baby caterpillars from these evil wasps.

In one morning Alex found ten babies and brought them indoors for their own safety. This created a huge amount of interest amongst the children as they began to observe the caterpillars grow. Next to where the caterpillars were placed was some research books about Monarch butterfly, as well as pens and paper which encouraged children engage in observational drawing. This created lots of dialogue where the children discussed their ideas and knowledge about the wonderful Monarch butterfly and their life cycle.

Pesiki: “They go to sleep and the next day they wake up and change into a small butterfly.”
Alex: “No! They sleep for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days and then they wake up and turn into butterflies.”
Pesiki: “Oh. You know that the caterpillars eat these leaves but we can’t.”
Alex: “Yeah, because they are poisonous to us, aye.”
Pesiki: “Yeah, they can eat the leaves and get big and fat. If the caterpillars don’t eat the leaves then they will get skinny.”

For some of these children revisiting the caterpillars has become a huge part of their day at kindergarten. They have been noting all the changes, beaming with excitement when they discover that the caterpillars have morphed into chrysalis’s and waiting with anticipation for the great reveal, when the butterfly emerges.

Many darwings of the Monarch butterfly life cycle have been created over the last few weeks. We love to record the children’s ideas, thoughts and knowledge so we encourage them to tell us about what they have drawn and what they know about the butterflies. This allows them to be able to revisit and critique their own work and extend on their own learning. Here are a few wonderful examples of the children’s voices.

Joseph was discussing the concept of metamorphosis while drawing his picture.

“They do metamorphosis. It is four things that they change into. First the caterpillar, then they slide into their cocoon, then they turn into butterflies. That’s metamorphosis. My Mum taught me about metamorphosis because she’s really clever and tricky.”

Aimee talked about what she was drawing. Her understanding was that Monarch Butterfly need swan plants to lay there eggs on so her she included a seed pod in her picture.

“These are the eggs. This is the spikey bit (seed pod)… now a butterfly and they have, look, very long antennae. This is going to be my baby caterpillar, now I’ll do a bigger caterpillar; this one has bigger antennae like that one (pointing to a large caterpillar on the plant). Now I have to do the cocoon.”

Alex has made it his responsibility to be a guardian to the tiny caterpillars, protecting them from the evil wasps. He brought in some swan plants from his home so that the caterpillars had enough food. He has spent every day for the last week studying the Monarch butterfly life cycle. Alex has drawn many pictures to explain his understanding and express his knowledge. He has also made 3D models of the Monarch in all of its life stages; egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and the butterfly.  

"Oh look here. I saved all of these guys and now they have got bigger. They are my buddies. I rescued all of them aye!...

I’m drawing caterpillars on the tree and a monarch butterfly landing. Do you want to see its wings? I am drawing it by looking at the picture. I’m going to do something. It hatches into a caterpillar. It’s an egg!

Those black things, the spots on the butterflies wings means it’s a boy. I saw that. That’s how I know. They have to eat lots to get bigger so they don’t get eaten by the wasps. They look like scary monsters to the caterpillars.

That was a caterpillar and now it’s turned into a chrysalis. It’s hanging and now it’s going to be disappearing into a chrysalis. It’s turning green. Look at this chrysalis. Now I have four and I am four. Now this one has hatched out of his egg and it grows and grows and turns green.

This is the Monarch butterflies life;
The butterfly lays an egg on a swan plant.
Then it flies away.
The egg hatches into a caterpillar. It’s tiny.
It gets bigger. It eats lots. It poo’s lots.
The big caterpillar turns into a chrysalis.
It stays in it for 5 weeks.
It turns into a butterfly. It flies away and goes to lay eggs. ”

The Monarch butterfly life cycle creates so much interest and curiosity amongst children. It allows them to explore scientific concepts around metamorphosis and change. This wonderful creature helps immerse children in one of the most intriguing and beautiful processes that the natural world has to offer.

“Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a life time.” (Moore and Wong)

 Zair

Planning for posibilities

Over the past few months we have been revamping our family/whanau play area at Kindergarten which has so far included new wallpaper, paint, furniture and resources.

With the start of a new year, we are now ready to undertake some bigger design plans. Our vision is to have Craig from CMC design create a doorway into our current play space.

The idea for a doorway came after Christine’s return from her REANZ Melbourne study tour; Christine shared with us a photo which she had taken of a doorway in one of the centres. This beautiful provocation inspired our team to finalise design plans of our own, which would also include a door.

Imagine how the children’s dramatic play will be enriched with the opportunity to both ‘arrive’ and ‘leave’ in their games. Role play is a powerful tool for children to re-enact real life experiences and therefore ‘make sense of the world’ by exploring ideas and actions during their play.

On Monday I sat with a group of children to discuss the teacher’s building plans and share images which have inspired our designs. When I explained to the children that we would like to create a door, they became very enthusiastic.

After looking at a selection of images of doors and discussing shape, form and openings, I asked the children to draw their own design for a door for family corner.

‘Drawing helps children to give their ideas form. In doing so they begin to clarify their thoughts and make their ideas visible for others to engage with’ (Pelo, 2007)

As the children became more engaged with their drawing many ideas were also shared verbally amongst the group;

‘It needs a window’

“The window should be green”

“No blue”

“It needs a handle. One that you hold onto”

"We need a grown up door"

This image shows some of the children’s first drawings and explanations:

Yesterday Liliana arrived at kindergarten with a tiny door made from Fimo. In Liliana’s house these beautiful little doors are created and displayed as entrances for fairies. Liliana’s door provided an excellent provocation to be offered at the clay table to encourage the children to further explore their ideas for door designs, whilst using a new medium.

‘The use of different mediums helps children to represent their ideas in other ways which not only demonstrates their learning but also enhances it. Each medium helps children practice different skills and recognise different aspects of the ideas they are pursuing’ (Curtis and Carter, 2008)

 

Through inspiration and persistence, the children created both 2D and 3D door designs with the clay. Some were sculpted to include intricate and detailed patterns motivated by further referenced photographs, combined with the children's own interpretations.  

Wow! the teaching team and Craig have a challenge ahead of us. We have so many design ideas to choose from it will be tricky to incorporate the plans and inspiration of all our creative tamariki! However, we do have a few consistent requests; 'the first door will be an arch shape, it will house a window (with wood on it), have two handles and open right out!'

We look forward to our new design installation and will be sure to share it on the blog...watch this space!

Nga mihi nui

Kim Townsend

Welcome to a new year at Mairtown Kindergarten

Welcome back to a new year at Mairtown. We are so excited to be back at Kindergarten and are really looking forward to an amazing 2013.

We would like to warmly welcome back all the familiar faces of our families/Whanau and their tamariki along with several new families and children, it is great to see so many returning families - nau mai haere mai.

On the first day back at Kindergarten the children came across some hay bales left on the grass, all the teachers were keen to see exactly what the children would make of these bales and how they might guide their play.

One of the first things that happened was that the hay bales - through the use of our children's imaginations - became great climbing equipment; enabling children to practise their balancing and jumping. This was in fact far trickier than it looked as the bales are soft underfoot making them extremely wobbly to walk on.

As Santos told me, "Be careful, it's wobbly...look at my big jump, I'm going to do this again...ooh its so so wobbly".

The children spent all morning jumping and climbing and repeating these experiences again and again.

Just before lunch the hay bales transformed into something completely different - this time they became a castle. Leah asked if we could move the bales (lots of great team work was required for this!) and soon Leah's plans were visible; walls were built and a castle emerged. This was almost immediately decorated with cushions for the fairies to sleep on and clipboards for the fairies to 'take-notes'.

Leah, "We're making a castle...how about we put the other pillow there so there is room for all of us, all of us fairies. I will get the blue pillows so we can lift our legs onto them".

Even the hay that escaped the bales has had a role in the children's work. Here April and Makenzie are making a birds nest. As I observed the girls I could see how they were negotiating, listening, sharing ideas and knowledge and learning to work alongside their peers effectively.

Here the nest had been placed high up in a tree by one of our parents. We will have to keep a careful watch to see if any birds like this new home!

Hay bales are what we would term 'loose parts' and enable open ended play at Kindergarten. The use of open ended materials and loose parts in our programme is very important to us. Other examples of loose parts you will see at Mairtown include sticks, rocks, sand, bark, ropes, shells, bunjeys the list is endless.

"Loose parts have infinite play possibilities, and their total lack of structure and script allows children to make of them whatever their imaginations desire...Through children's handling, manipulation and physical interaction with materials and the natural environment, they learn the rules and principles that make the world operate" (White & Stoecklin, 1998).

I hope you can see how, in just one day, the hay bales have challenged the children physically and mentally. They have sparked the children's curiosity, encouraged the children to be creative and use their imaginations, allowed for the interaction and the sharing of ideas with other children and adults, and stimulated the children's senses (the hay smells truly divine!)

I wonder what new ideas the children will find for the bales over the next few days?

Christine

End of year Celebration

We are into our final week of Kindergarten before our Christmas break. This term seems to have gone so quickly! At the end of the year we feel it is important to celebrate the past 12 months' achievements and contributions from our children and whanau.

Last Thursday we celebrated with a picnic at Mair Park. What an incredible night this was, and really lovely to see and welcome so many friends, families and past children of Mairtown. We had lots of catch ups!

Many children arrived in some spectacular fancy dress outfits. What a great effort everyone!

Soon it was time for the a little treat as we watched Mike the magician perform for us. Mike had many willing volunteers (and not all children!) who all did an amazing job, showing great confidence to stand up in front of their peers and help with the performance.

Have a look at the video and photo clips below.

The children loved the show; there was lots of fun and laughter, we were all very entertained.

"It's the little moments that make life big"

A big well done and congratulations to the winners of our Christmas raffles.

Next it was time for more fun and a bit of a hunt amongst the trees for some hidden treasure.

We finish for the year this Thursday and will return next year on Wednesday 23^rd January. From all of us at Mairtown we wish our children and families a happy Christmas – enjoy your well-earned holidays. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to all our families and whanau over the year for your help at Kindergarten. All your help - no matter how big or small - is really really appreciated and makes a big difference for us as a teaching team. We couldn’t do it without you all.

Good luck and lots of success to our children that are leaving us for school. Although we will miss you all, we know you are ready for this next step in your education – Kia kaha tonu! (Keep going!)

Christine