We have been doing part days with the school, home learning, OT, swimming lessons, cricket and Karate as well as Kicky turning 4 years old and having a party and this month I also flew to Port Lincoln to be with my sister and her husband as they welcomed their second child. And we said goodbye to our beloved bunnies who got very sick and we couldn't help them except by putting them out of their misery. As I said it's been an enormous month of change. I'll write about these things later I'm sure but for now here is a little learning story/project that Edward had me type out.
The Caterpillars.
By Edward Kranz
When we came
home from school our friend Rox visited for coffee and told mum she had seen
some caterpillars on our vines. She said maybe we could feed them to the
chickens.
Nicky tried
to run out the door and mum told him he needs to wait.
Rox went
back to work and we got a green cup and found the caterpillars in the vines.
Nicky was a bit scared of them and only wants to hold the cup not the
caterpillars. I found lots of caterpillars.
We didn't
know what kind of caterpillars they were. So we looked it up on the internet.
Mum found a
poster with lots of different caterpillars on them and we found the right
picture.
Our
caterpillars are called AGARISTINAE I like trying to say
their name. They are also called "day-flying moths" they turn into a black moth when they grow up.
This is what
the internet says about them:
"This is a striking Caterpillar which is black with pale yellow lines running across and along its body to give it a checked appearance. It has long white hairs scattered sparsely over its otherwise smooth skin. It has a light brown head capsule, a series of lateral red spots, and a big red rump. This big red knob on the last abdominal segment may cause predators such as birds to mistake the tail for the head, and being larger, may even repel them, or at least divert their attention from the more vital head region. The Caterpillar usually rests on the undersides of the leaves of its food plant."
we knew
these were the right caterpillars because we found them on our grape vines.
But our
caterpillars couldn't stay so we went to the lions trail and put them on a
bush.
And that was
the end of the caterpillars at our house.
