During September, I taught moths and butterflies to Anne’s
Nature Study class. I had ordered caterpillars to hand out to the
various families; unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, the
caterpillars did not arrive before the first class.
During September, I taught moths and butterflies to Anne’s Nature Study class. I had ordered caterpillars to hand out to the various families; unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, the caterpillars did not arrive before the first class.
So all I had for my first class was a lecture – not the best option for a class of 15, where the youngest child is 3, and the oldest children are 14, with a mean student-age of 11.
We made the best of it. We divided the children into two patrols, with a 14-year-old in charge of each patrol. I can deal better with two patrols of seven than with one mob of 15. I asked the patrol leaders if everyone had his nature journal, water bottle, pencils, colored pencils, and a pack to carry it all? Not everyone did, but they did by the next week.
Then we classified butterflies, first deciding they belonged to the Kingdom Animalia, not to Plantae, Fungi, Protista, nor Monera, and proceeding through phylum, class, and order, to the family Lepidoptera. Even the 5-and-unders learned to chant, “King Philip cried out, for goodness sake!” and helped to decide whether a butterfly goes into Crustacea with crabs, or Insecta with insects.
Then we drew the structure of the butterfly, then the life cycle. All this took tremendous time, with the patrol leader making sure each member of his patrol had everything drawn, that the literate students had everything written, and that the pre-literate students had “butterfly” and “life cycle” written, before we went on to the next step.
Next, I sent them on hikes, by patrol, to see if they could spot any butterflies in situ. When they returned, I gave them their snack.
Arriving home, I found a package on my porch, containing some instructions, a packet of tan powder, six extra cups and lids, and a lidded cup with tan goop and 34 caterpillars inside.
I read the instructions, mixed up the artificial diet, an odiferous tan goop, doled it into cups, and apportioned caterpillars. I set the cups onto a shelf, out of direct sunlight. I typed up instructions on the care, feeding, and observation of caterpillars.
Alas, by Monday morning all but one caterpillar had died. I wrote a terse and disagreeable email to the company. Just before I left for class, they replied: they would send replacement larvae.
We brought the surviving caterpillar to class. I explained the catastrophe to the children. They drew the caterpillar and some mounted butterflies. I told them about the differences between moths and butterflies, and went over with them the directions for care and feeding, solemnly and slowly, while they copied my drawings and wrote, those that could write, my instructions. Then they hiked, and ate snacks, and went home.
Thursday the replacement larvae arrived. I mixed goop, parceled out caterpillars, and drove all over Gilroy and Morgan Hill to deliver instructions, caterpillars and joy.
Every day, Anne and I drew our caterpillars. They tripled in size, ate goop and peas, and molted. At class, the kids showed me their drawings, and I told them about the carnivorous caterpillars discovered in a Hawaiian volcano, and the monarchs and their amazing migration. And hike, and snack …
Then Anne’s caterpillars tried to form chrysalises and died. I sorrowed for our caterpillars, and fretted about the other families’. But little Stephanie told me at Park Day that hers had formed chrysalises, and I took heart.
We took the kids to Natural Bridges, where they delighted in spotting returning monarchs, on the wing and resting in the trees. They shouted their discoveries to each other, and drew caterpillars, chrysalises, and plants in the milkweed garden.
Stephanie went camping, and left her chrysalises with us. Her butterflies emerged, two to flutter on magnificent wings and sip sugar-water from uncurled proboscises, the third to flounder helplessly on crumpled wings.
We released it into the rosemary bushes, where many butterflies flourish, to sip nectar or provide food for some happy spider. And we gave Stephanie back her butterflies at the next nature study class, when Michele began to teach them about rainforests.
