Inquiry, Art, and Caterpillars

Caterpillars have crawled all over our classroom and our imaginations this week.  Our annual butterfly hatching project was kicked into high gear with the arrival of our caterpillars.  Our first order of business was to OBSERVE.

This year we did inquiry based observation.  The students created a list of questions they had about their caterpillars and then set out to gather data.  Nearly everyone wanted to track their growth in an attempt to answer the question, "How big will they grow?"  We also have kids tracking color, changes in marking, and amount of movement.

This year we are using a simple student made data sheet so they can record exactly what is important to them.

Once our observations were underway, we moved to a bit of an intellectual art project.  Each child paints their toes, just the small round part, and then stands down on a piece of paper making the body of the caterpillar.  We used small paper plates with 4 possible colors for a group of 4 kids to share.  They painted with a paper towel and then washed off with another paper towel so the mess was a minimum.  While the paint dried we explored "Caterpillars" on the Britannica on-line data base.  I read aloud and showed pictures from the site and the kids recorded favorite facts below their painted caterpillars.  (This girl is a BIG fan of Eric Carle so you can tell her facts are seasoned with her own schema!).  By the time we finished with favorite facts their caterpillars were dry and they added in eyes, legs, and antennas.

As we read on-line we began to notice that a lot of what we thought we knew about a caterpillar's anatomy was incorrect.  This began a quest to discover what a caterpillar's body is actually like.  We read, From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and Caterpillars and Butterflies by Stephanie Turnbull.  As I read the kids took notes of the specific body parts mentioned and what was true about them.  We then spent some time observing our caterpillars with magnifying glasses and looking to identify these parts.  At the end of our time together the kids drew an "accurate" picture of a caterpillar's body under their facts.

We ended our week of inquiry and observation with the beloved The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and talked about fiction, non-fiction, and books that contain a bit of both.  We then painted rock caterpillars and enjoyed moving like caterpillars.  We can't wait to explore the pupa or chrysalis stage next!