Planting flowers in the butterfly house

This week we planted some cosmos plants inside the butterfly house as well as pansies outside the house as we ensure we have some food for the butterflies that will emerge from their chrysalis .

Butterflies in the butterfly house

With the butterfly house open all week we were excited on Friday to find not 1 butterfly in the house but 5. Each of them were busy laying eggs and we were delighted. Before long we will have a lot of caterpillars to watch grow. Yippee - the life cycle of the butterfly has begun.

We are planning to tidy up the butterfly house in the week ahead - pulling out the old cosmos plants and putting some more soil in before we plant some more cosmos for the butterflies to feed on in the weeks to come. We are also looking to plant some new swan plants so the caterpillars will have plenty to eat!!

Butterfly house - Week 6 Term 3 2012

Spring is in the air and this week at school we spied the first monarch butterflies of the season. The butterflies have visited the swan plant outside the junior office and many little white eggs have been found. Eager to get some butterflies inside the butterfly house we opened up the front of the house - did we see any butterflies visit - no not one!!! Maybe we will have more luck next week.

Butterfly - is it a female or a male?

As a class we have enjoyed looking at the butterflies in the butterfly house. We are becoming experts at identifying the difference between a male and female butterfly. Look at the photo below - is this butterfly a female or a male?




It is a male butterfly - we know this because of the black dots on its smaller wings

The butterfly house

As a class we went to look at the butterfly house. We stood and watched the many caterpillars busily munching on the leaves as well as the many who were busy crawling up the net to higher places to make their chrysalis.

Beautiful butterflies

Before school on Friday Isabel and Pia visited Room 1 with these beautiful butterflies. We looked closely at them and discovered that one of them was a male (boy) the other was a female (girl). We have learnt so much about monarch butterflies since we have had the butterfly house. Well done girls.

Clever photos by Mr Barnes

Mr Barnes captured these photos last week and sent them to us in an email. We think Mr Barnes is very clever to take such detailed photos we could see the butterflies wings and the dew drops on the chrysalis. Well done Mr Barnes.







This is the beautiful butterfly that emerged.

A beautiful butterfly in room 1

This week we were lucky enough to have a beautiful butterfly emerge from its chrysalis in our classroom. Mr Barnes had put it in our room so we could watch it emerge but that butterfly was way too clever and emerged without even telling us!!! We looked up to see it drying it's wings. At the end of the day Mrs Rennie-Younger had to let it go because Mr Barnes was concerned it might set off the alarms in the night if it flew around the classroom!

Butterfly house - a butterfly laying eggs

At lunchtime some of us watched a butterfly laying her eggs on a swan plant in our butterfly house. The butterfly house is such a great place to visit.

Butterfly house - caterpillars galore

Finlay and his family visited the butterfly house this week and took these amazing photos of all the wonderful caterpillars happily munching on the swan plants.

Who would have thought that we would have had so many caterpillars in our butterfly house - just imagine what the butterfly house will look like when all those caterpillars turn into beautiful butterflies.

Thanks Finlay and your family for sending through these photos.

Butterfly house - Great news

Why did we have to leave our classroom in such a hurry you ask?


Well you see, Mr Barnes appeared at our classroom door and told us some very exciting news that our precious butterfly was emerging from its chrysalis. We quickly put on our hats and raced out the door and this is what we saw. It was so exciting.






As it's wings dried it has moved around the butterfly house. On close inspection we have discovered it is a male butterfly.

Butterfly house

Arriving back from holiday we were pleased that our caterpillars have grown well over the break. On Friday this caterpillar lost its way!!! We put it carefully back on the swan plant.


Can you spot our chubby caterpillar hiding on the plant?


Mrs Rennie-Younger found this butterfly while on holiday and thought it would look great in the butterfly house. What do you think?


The plants in the butterfly house have grown so well over the break. The cosmos plants are flowering, making the butterfly house a great place to sit and watch our budding caterpillars.

Butterfly house

As the term drew to a close - the last of the swan plants that we have been given were planted in the butterfly house.
As we looked at the existing swan plants we spotted an amazing sight - our first caterpillar - it was busy eating one of the leaves. It was very exciting.
If you look very closely you can see our wee caterpillar on the leaf that it has been nibbling!!!


Thank you to all the people who have helped us with the butterfly house this term - you have helped to make a butterfly house an exciting new addition to our school.


Look at how well our plants are growing.

The butterfly house

The door to the butterfly house has been fitted - with zips on either side the door of the butterfly house can be clipped up to allow easy access. We are grateful to Bill Barry from Covers and Canvas Limited for working with Mr Barnes to design the netting for the butterfly house.





Thanks to Mrs Rennie for donating some flowers.


Thanks to Tahlia for bringing in the swan plants she had carefully grown at home.

Butterfly house

It has been yet another exciting week - watching the next stage of the butterfly house construction. This week the netting has been placed around the butterfly house. The netting is designed to keep the wasps out to give the caterpillars a better chance of surviving.

The butterfly house

This week has been an exciting week with the planting of swan plants and flowers in the butterfly house

Swan plants were placed in the ground. These plants were donated by Carlos. Thanks Carlos and thanks Mr Barnes for planting these.


A group of children planted some flowers which were donated by Mrs Sutherland (our school librarian). Thanks Mrs Sutherland.


The initial planting of flowers was completed


Finlay planted the swan plants that his Nana (Nana Rosie) donated. - Thanks Nana Rosie.





If you have any swan plants or flowers you would like to donate to the school to place in the butterfly house- we would love to hear from you.