Phase-In 2018

Last Wednesday and Thursday, we welcomed our newest group of kindergarteners! The days were simple -- we played a little, colored, took a brief tour of the school, and just enjoyed getting to know our new students. Here are some pictures ...

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! 😍