Monarchs

Our class is raising monarch caterpillars. Check here to see their progress!

Darwin, Curie, Franklin & Newton are introduced to our classroom. Students learned about their life cycle and autumn migration. The caterpillars eat a lot of milkweed and continue to grow.

The caterpillars are approaching the end of this stage of their life cycle so we transfer them to a butterfly cage for when then start to form chrysalides. We also get 2 new caterpillers: one (Carver) is about the same size as our other four and is in the cage; the other (Mendel) is too small and stays in a separate enclosure.

The first chrysalis forms, but fell from the leaf. I left it on the bottom of the cage to fully form and then transferred it to a cotton swab.

We had another chrysalis form and, unfortunately, one of the caterpillars died. I think it was the last one added to the group.

In the morning, another caterpillar started to form a chrysalis, so I left the cage at home to prevent any falling during my commute. But the time I got home, the chrysalis was fully formed and the last cat in the cage, started its journey to metamorphosis. Mendel went to school and continued to eat and grow. Will add some pictures tomorrow!

Our last caterpillar, Mendel, form a chrysalis during block 7/8. Check out the video below. We now have all 5 chrysalides hanging in the cage, waiting to become butterflies. The first ones should emerge this week!

Three butterflies emerged from their chrysalides this week! We had 2 females and a male. Tracking tags from Monarch Watch were attached to them before they were release for their southern migration for the winter.