Caterpillar Becomes Butterfly

One day our teacher brought a caterpillar that was placed in a jar to school. The caterpillar eats green leaves. The little caterpillar will turn into a butterfly. Caterpillars usually turn into butterflies outdoors. But we watched caterpillars turn into butterflies in our class

Our teacher said that our caterpillars came from very small eggs. The mother butterfly lays its eggs on the leaves. The mother butterfly selects plant leaves for the caterpillar to eat. When the caterpillar hatches from its egg, it feels hungry. He's going to eat the egg shells! Then he immediately started eating green leaves.

The job of the caterpillar is to eat and eat, so that it can grow. Every day he will get bigger. Caterpillars eat and grow for 12 days.

Our skin grows as our body grows. But the caterpillar skin doesn't grow. When the caterpillar's body is too big for its skin, the skin will tear.

The caterpillar will crawl out of its own skin. He has new skin underneath. This is called letting go. Our caterpillar sheds its skin four times. After a while, our caterpillars finished growing. He's almost as big as my little finger.

Then our caterpillars make a special house. First of all it was made of silk buttons. The caterpillar uses this button to hang upside down on the branch.

Then he would peel off the skin one last time. Instead of new skin, this time the caterpillar forms a cocoon with a hard shell. We watch the cocoons for a long time.

Every day the shell looks the same. But inside the shell there is a change.

We waited and waited. Then, one day, someone shouted, "Look!" Cracked shell. It's a butterfly! Our butterflies are moist and tangled. He was hanging from his shell while flapping his wings. This is to pump blood to the wings. The wings are stretched and dry. Soon our butterfly is ready to fly.

Our butterflies cannot live in jugs. He must be outside with flowers and grass and trees. We see our butterfly landing on the flower. He sucked in the nectar through a long, coiled tube. Maybe she's a female butterfly. Maybe one day she will lay eggs on the leaves.