The toddlers had a very busy month learning all about the butterfly life cycle in Crawford Childcare in Glanmire. We spent a week learning all about caterpillars. The toddlers talked about the colours of the different circles as they enthusiastically glued them together in chains to make their caterpillars. They also enjoyed listening to the story of the hungry caterpillar that Janine read to them. Everyone was very interested and listened carefully to the story. Afterwards the toddlers hoped they would find caterpillars in the garden and so a bug hunt developed. We didn’t find any caterpillars but we did find a few worms!

The following week moving on from caterpillars we looked at cocoons. We wrapped the toddlers up in blankets pretending they were all going for a big sleep before emerging as a beautiful butterfly. Seamus, Aine, Beatriz, Robyn, Aoife and James enjoyed taking turns wrapping each other up with blankets. James got comfortable and decided he didn’t want to leave his cocoon.
During these weeks we also showed the toddlers pictures of the butterfly life cycle. The first picture we introduced was the butterfly eggs. Everyone was confused by what they saw on the leaf. They were in awe as we explained all about butterflies laying eggs on leaves. We continued to show pictures of the different stages of a caterpillar turning in to a cocoon and becoming a butterfly. Everyone was fascinated and Seamus and Lucy asked a lot of questions as to what was happening in the picture.

Next we decided to make butterflies by painting tissue paper and using pipe cleaners for their bodies. This involved a lot of colour mixing. Beatriz, Aoibheann, Daniel and Alessandro all dipped their brushes in to three or four colours before they even started their painting. What a creative bunch of toddlers we have!!