Natural Cycles
vintage scientific plate.
Out in the woods yesterday, the kids and I had some great teaching moments. With winter slowly receding, signs of life are beginning to reveal themselves. Nothing is cooler then being able to investigate the natural world first hand. And even better, when we find that the learning organically follows up at home. Natural discoveries are such a wonderful jumping off point!
It started yesterday when I wandered off the path to take some photographs. As the kids followed close behind I turned to see my toddler gently put her little finger on something fuzzy on a log. Hmmm. Yikes. Upon closer investigation this light brown fuzzy lump looked to be a caterpillar of some sort. Wooly bear like fuzz but not color. Late winter, what would be out right now? It didn't move or curl when we touched it so we weren't sure. We got an up close look, threw out a hypothesis or two, and snapped a picture before moving on. (our picture below)
The funniest thing happened that night. Before bed I always read a few pages front one of many books I'm in the middle of reading. I hadn't read from my "Winter World" book in a while and figured I should get a move on before winters end. Don't I turn the page only to find that I'm on a chapter about wintering moths! And of course an illustration of a wooly bear is right there to greet me, along with a paragraph on the overwintering of the wooly bear, aka Isabella Tiger Moth. I had to laugh. What timing!
I found that Wooly Bears do overwinter out in the open, protected only by fallen leaves and such. They make their cocoon from the spines on their wooly bodies. This is what we saw on the log. The little cocooned wooly bear, on the tail end of his long winters "nap".
This morning I shared what I learned with my four year old and pulled up the picture of yesterday's find on my phone. To follow this up I pulled out a book I have with big beautiful photos of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. I showed him pictures of the cocoon and the transition to flying insect. While not exactly the same we talked about similarities and differences between the two as each goes through metamorphosis.
Later on in the morning I had a chance to share a great time lapse video with him. It showed the busy little wooly bear hard at work forming his cocoon. The same one that we saw in its finished state on the log. I could see the excitement growing as the smile got bigger on his phase. Construction is right up his alley.
To finish this lesson we took a look at a simple graphic illustrating the full life cycle of an Isabella Tiger Moth. I showed him pictures of the Beautiful Moth wings and we discussed how the colors were the same as the wooly bear. Which, by the way he had done a school craft on in the fall. Incidentally while in the middle of talking about these little guys the class also saw one crawling out in the school yard. Again, seriously great timing. Things have a way of falling into place, don't they?
And there you have it. Just another amazingly productive day for curious minds. Hope you get a chance to seek out adventures today with your little ones!
