WATERDRAGONS: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Waterdragons have been learning about one of the special messages of Easter – New Life! While we are very excited that the Easter Bunny will soon be on his way, we have been looking closely at the journey of Jesus and learning about symbols of new life.

We read lots of stories about Jesus and learned about his childhood and family. We made books about the stages of Jesus’ life and learned songs about Him, too. (We even taught them to the Possums and our buddies!) As Lent began, we talked about trying to be more like Jesus.·

As Easter approached, we focused on Holy Week and discussed the last days of Jesus’ life. The children felt very sad about the things done to Jesus but were pleased at the happy ending on Easter Sunday. The Waterdragons talked about Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of new life. We brainstormed other symbols of new life and were amazed to discover that Easter eggs are a sign of new life, too!

We were very clever to recognise a symbol of new life in our classroom, when some caterpillars and a golden chrysalis were brought to school.
We decided to keep them so we could watch them change into butterflies.

The caterpillars were kept in a fish tank (generously donated!) with the golden chrysalis, and fed fresh leaves every day. They ate and ate ….
and grew and grew… …. and then sometime over the weekend….
turned into brown chrysalises!

The Waterdragons counted and recorded how long each chrysalis took to hatch. They were thrilled to see the butterflies when they emerged - the caterpillars had new lives!