Butterfly release

We had a great day for our butterfly release! The final chrysalis hatched the day before, and the older butterflies were eager to get out and spread their wings!

This butterfly was the last to emerge. See how crumpled its wings are? 

We headed outside and handed a butterfly to each student, one at a time, and they got to hold it in their hands until it flew away. Some flew away really quickly -- too quickly to get a photo -- but all of the students had a wonderful time watching their "babies" fly away! If you look closely at these photos, you can probably see the butterflies -- if not in each child's hands, then flying nearby.

Much to the delight of our students, this little guy took a while to fly away. He enjoyed several careful trips around our playground before he finally made the leap.

Once our butterflies had been released, many of our girls enacted the life cycle of a butterfly. Here, they have emerged and are flying!

Butterflies!

What better way to learn about butterflies, a recent science unit, than to raise actual caterpillars and watch them transform! We started off with clear plastic cups that contained five tiny caterpillars. We watched as the caterpillars ate and grew and ate and grew some more!

After a couple of weeks, we noticed our caterpillars gravitating to the lids of their containers, the lids of which had special ventilated covers. They wrapped themselves inside their chrysalises (chrysalii?? I have no idea if that's how you spell it!) We gave them a couple of days to harden, then we transferred the lids into the butterfly net.

This past Monday, we were thrilled to see that our first butterfly had "hatched"!

So far, eight have hatched, and we love checking on them every day. On Friday or Monday, depending on when the final butterflies hatch (and their wings dry), we will set them free on the playground. We hope to have lots of pictures of happy kindergartners holding butterflies on their fingers! 😍

Can you SEE oxygen??

As part of our unit on plants, we learned about how trees and leaves take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen (while also learning that humans do the opposite -- the students thought it was amazing that plants help us while we help them ... isn't God creative??). We did a science experiment that actually showed the leaves giving off oxygen. First, we headed to the playground to hunt for the perfect leaves!

Next, the students had to work in groups to decide which leaf was the best for the experiment. This was harder than you'd think, since everyone wanted their own leaves to be included! (Compromise is a life skill! 😉)

Then we headed back inside to drop our leaves into a clear, covered container.

Water on your hands is always fun!

We waited an hour or so (see ... literally the easiest science experiment ever) and then observed what we saw. There were oxygen bubbles all over each leaf! 

As time passed, the bubbles disappeared due to there being a finite amount of oxygen in the leaves. However, one container was still quite "bubbly" the next morning, so we decided to investigate each leaf to see if we could figure out why. 

We didn't really arrive at a conclusion -- all of the leaves were the same, so we couldn't identify size or species as the reason. But as I always tell the students, science isn't about having all the answers, it's about being willing to ask the questions!

Playing catch-up ... part II

Continuing from last week's catch-up post, here are more pictures of fun things we've been up to lately. Easter is really meaningful when you work with young children. To see their excited faces as they learn about Christ's resurrection is really powerful and reminds us what our mission is here at Hickory Valley.

Mrs. Shepard reads "The Parable of the Lily." 

We also had a super fun Easter egg hunt with our third-grade buddies. The third-graders brought in the eggs and hid them, then we partnered up with them to find them. The K5's and the older kids have really benefited from this friendship this year, and I think everyone had a blast!

We love our third-grade buddies!

We did a science unit on plants and had fun looking at real plant parts through this giant magnifier ...

 ... as well as using standard magnifying glasses.

Then we sketched our own flowers!

We were SUPER excited to start Soccer Shots (seriously, like half of the K5's are enrolled) ...

When this group is in third grade, HVCS is going to have a killer soccer team!

We were enthralled by the science experiments a high school Science Olympiad team shared with us one morning at Circle.

We learned about fractions by cutting play-doh and counting Smarties.

And just before Earth Day, we helped teach the whole school how to be a creation super hero!

 Up next ... literally the world's easiest science experiment. Stay tuned!!!