Monday, October 17, 2011

Weekend Science

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I happened to look down on Saturday night and found a very interesting little critter for Selena to explore. The first thing she did was named it Nibbles. We brought it in and put it in a jar with some grass so the investigation could begin. I asked Selena where she got the name Nibbles and she grabbed her book, “The Best Pet Ever” and opened it up. Sure enough one of the Perfect Pets in the book is named Nibbles, and it truly was so appropriate as the item in the book was a fuzzy mitten.

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This fuzzy little caterpillar truly deserved the name of Nibbles. We investigated it as closely as we could, and researched it on the Internet to discover many interesting facts that I didn’t even know about. This is a Tiger Moth Caterpillar. I will let Selena’s story that she wrote tell you everything we learned. We then took him back outside and released him.

Guess what we found the following morning?

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Selena was so thrilled to rediscover Nibbles right where we had released him. She was upset when he disappeared but we assured her that he had went and found a home.

OK, so now what did we learn?

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NIbbles By Selena

Nibbles is a caterpillar. Nibbles is furry and he gets food. He takes it home and eats it. Selena saw Nibbles in her back yard. We discovered Nibbles. The End

Nibbles Part 2

Nibbles is fantastic. Nibbles eats grass. He will turn into a moth next summer. He will hibernate in the fall and winter. He will make a cocoon in the summer. He will go through a metamorphosis and become a tiger moth.

I found it interesting that this little fellow would go into hibernation. I never heard that fact before. We had a lot of fun exploring this critter, learning as much as we did. I think the one thing that really made it especially neat for Selena was rediscovering him the next morning.

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7 comments:

  1. Great science journal entry. Does she like to draw?

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  2. Funny - C and R found a caterpillar this weekend too and they were sad to release it!

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  3. This is a great story. I remember we read a book about a caterpillar hibernating through winter. I believe it was called, Don't Worry Bear. It's a fiction book, but the hibernation is described correctly.

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  4. Great exploration and journal entry by Selena!
    We call these caterpillars "woolly bear" caterpillars here. They are all over at this time of year. Some people think you can tell how hard of a winter we'll have by how big the caterpillars are, or how fluffy they are, or something like that.
    Jenna wants to find one of the caterpillars and watch it throughout the winter in a jar. She saw the suggestion in one of the insect books she's been reading lately.

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  5. I was going to say the same thing as Susan. The width of that brown band on the caterpillar is supposed to tell how harsh the winter will be. What a fun find!

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