Weston-Super-Mare

We all had a roastingly great day at Weston-Super-Mare yesterday making sandcastles on the beach, riding donkeys, visiting the Grand Pier to see if we could spot the ocean and cooling off with ice cream. Here are a few photographs from our fantastic day at the seaside. Thank you for all your help and support making it an enjoyable day for everyone. 

Flutter by butterflies…

We had a lovely time at Calthorpe Haven releasing the Painted Lady butterflies that hatched yesterday.  We released them one by one and the first two were very keen to flutter off into the distance. We decided they wanted some sweet nectar and wanted to explore their new home for it. The final couple of butterflies were a little timid so Miss Samra had to encourage them to be brave! She placed them on some flowers we chose and we decided they might be sunbathing because they were cold blooded and didn’t have enough energy to fly away yet. Maybe the butterflies will lay some eggs… Where would be the best place for them to do this and why..?

Very Hungry caterpillars!

Caterpillar watch…We have got Painted Lady Butterfly larvae in our classroom! We have been closely watching our caterpillars grow and change. We got them on Friday 28th April and have been watching them munching away and getting bigger and bigger. We thought about how long they were using centimetres. Take a look at the pictures and you may notice:

The pot is covered with silk webs so that the caterpillars move around easier. 

The black balls which are lots of different sizes is the skin they have shed (got rid of) as they have been growing. 

The tiny greenish brown pellets are caterpillar poo called frass.

See what else you can spot…

Creating a Bug Hotel

This week we had a fantastic opportunity to work with Stephen Whitehead. We had to think about mini beasts and what they need in their habitats. Where would different bugs choose to rest? We pretended to be different kinds of insects or mini-beasts and thought about their body shapes especially when they were resting. This helped us to think about how much room they needed. We then used different materials such as wooden or bamboo sticks to create our special spaces for them and put them into the large Bug Hotel! Take a look at the pictures!