Learning as it Happens!

Early in Term 3 Jay brought in a very strange looking cocoon. It looked very old and we all thought that it was dead because it rattled.
Mrs Geal put it safely on the desk and we all forgot about it.

This is what it looked like.

In the last week of the term Mrs Geal and Mr Colvin found this big beautiful moth in the classroom. We thought it must have hatched from the cocoon. We could not find the cocoon anywhere!

It was really big. We did some research online and found out that it was a female Gum Emperor Moth. They live in Eucalyptus (gum) trees. We called her Mikayla.
We found out that she would only live for 3 or 4 days and that she would not eat anything!
Mtrs Geal set her free the next day because we thought she was dying. We hope she flew to the nearby trees to lay her eggs.

Mrs Geal found the cocoon. Mikayla must have had to wriggle very hard to get out and the cocoon fell down behind a book on the desk. You can see the big hole where she came out.

We were fascinated and did a lot of learning about the life cycle of moths and butterflies. We also wrote lots of stories in our exciting week.