Diary of a Brassica Butterfly

Watch our voice thread show to learn about the life cycle of a Brassica Butterfly and to learn how they depend on the Wisconsin Fast Plant.

Butterflies on Tuesday?

Our Brassica are now in chrysalis form. We wouldn't be surprised to find a few butterflies flying around the pavilion tomorrow morning. Hopefully the fast plants speed up so that there are some flowers for the butterflies to find nectar!

Fast Plants and Butterflies

Our Fast Plant seeds arrived last Friday, and by Monday they had sprouted! Today, they are the habitat for our Brassicca Butterfly eggs.

Our week in review:

1. We made Mexican butter cookies (Polvorones). It was fun to make them.

2. It was hard to cream the butter with a fork and then to mix the flour with it.

3. I liked our day in Mexico.

4. I liked the cookies that we made. They had a lot of cinnamon. My dad liked them too.

5. The eggs arrived. They look like crumbs! They're yellowish greenish and only a millimeter long!

6. I learned how to add money amounts into a calculator.

7. We learned about Fast Plants.

8. I learned in P.E. that jumping above balls is easy if you pay attention.

9. My favorite part was when we got to taste the cookies. I was proud of how they tasted.

10. I am proud of planting the Fast Plants seeds. I've never planted before. I was happy to see them grow.

11. I'm excited that the bulletin board is empty, because that means we're starting a new unit!

12. There's a caterpillar on a leaf! It's the same color as the eggs!

13. I learned that caterpillars like eating leaves.

14. Seeds sprout into seedlings.

15. I shared about winning an award for horseback riding.

Ghana to Mexico

We are preparing for our trip to Mexico. Yes, we just returned from Ghana and are now setting off on another adventure. Our last days in Ghana were spent celebrating our learning. We listened to Ghanaian music from the 70s (a time when tradition and culture was mixed with new sounds) and made our own Adinkra cloths. Although we will miss Ghana, we look forward to exploring Mexico!

Our Week in Review

* My favorite part of the week was getting to chop down "cocoa beans."

* Cocoa beans are 8-15 inches long!

* We learned about "Fair Trade."

* I learned that Ghanaians can use coconut husks to build roofs.

* Ghanaians use long poles to harvest cocoa beans.

* Yams, rice, millet, cassava, tuna, sardines, prawns, plantains, and may other foods are eaten in Ghana.

* I am moving up on my mad minutes.

* Yams are a root.

* Tuna is great in soup!

* We're almost done with our moon books!

* 1 centimeter = 1/100 of a meter.

* 1 decimeter = 1/10 of a meter.

Ghana and Back

Quite a busy day! So busy, the children didn't get a chance to share their thoughts about the week.

Ask your child about our flight to Accra, Ghana. We flew 5,600 miles over the Atlantic to the African country near the Equator. Needless to say, we had time to watch an in-flight movie. The movie toured the coastal plains, rain forest, Lake Volta, and Savanna. We realized that we were overdressed, but we were happy that we packed shorts, sun glasses, and hats. We experienced quite an adventure AND made it back to school in time for the 3:00 bell!

Week in Review

I learned:

* If there's something lost, you can make a new one.

* If you add the middle number to the answer and you get the top number, your answer's right! (Trade-First Subtraction)

* Anansi stories come from Ghana.

* Ghana is close to the Equator.

* Ghana is in Africa.

* When people started getting into a fight, I started to say, "Stop fighting. We can redo it."

* A leader is someone that listens to others' ideas, not just follows their own ideas. A leader makes decisions after hearing all ideas. A leader lets everyone have a little bit of something that they want.

* It's easier to do problems when you memorize facts.

* Ghana is really close to the equator. It's north of it.

* It's fun to measure things you do (how far you can jump).

* It was fun finding the median jumping length.

* In Ghana children can eat from a shared bowl of food.

* Ghana is in Africa.

* Ghana is way smaller than the U.S.

* Ghana is a country.