Contributed Photo
Byrd Elementary student Ahmani Quarles holds a Monarch butterfly while classmate Makenzie Coles observes the newly hatched creature .

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As the school year begins at Byrd Elementary School, so does the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly.

One group of kindergarten students observe these caterpillars in the larva stage for about two weeks, watching as these caterpillars grow from one fourth of an inch to about two inches. 

During the months of September and October, the Monarch butterflies are migrating south from Canada.  These beautiful butterflies stop along the way to sometimes mate, lay eggs, and eat wherever there is the milkweed plant. 

Virginia is on the migration path of the Monarch butterfly, as Goochland has plenty of milkweed. 

The female butterfly will only lay eggs on milkweed because that is all the baby caterpillars will eat.  Milkweed tastes bad to other insects and animals, so the ingested milkweed eventually protects the adult butterfly.

When the caterpillars have eaten all the milkweed (the host plant for the Monarch), they can consume, they are placed in a butterfly net. They then climb to the top.  This is when the metamorphosis of this beautiful insect is about to begin. When a caterpillar forms a “J”, the children say with excitement, “Mrs. Meiller, Mrs. Wiggins!  The caterpillar is about to form a chrysalis!” 

The students’ vocabulary expands, with words like “larva,” “metamorphosis,”“chrysalis,” and “pupa.”

For about two more weeks, the children wait and watch the beautiful green chrysalids with shiny gold dots in the butterfly net.  When the butterfly is ready to come out the chrysalis turns black.  And the students can see the shape of one of its orange and black wings.

Then the butterfly emerges.  It hangs on the empty chrysalis, wet and wrinkled, then begins to slowly open and close its wings for drying purposes and to get the blood pumping.

After its wings are dry, the Monarch butterfly is ready to be released.  The class walks outside together, stand in a line on the sidewalk in front of the school, and take turns gently holding this incredible creature.  When each child has had a turn holding the butterfly, the Monarch is placed on a flower to sip nectar and fatten up for its long journey to Mexico. 

The children sing, “I gotta go…I gotta go…I gotta go to Mexico!”

In addition to letters and sounds, the unit on Monarch Butterflies gives these children opportunities to count caterpillars, compare sizes of caterpillar lengths, and follow migration paths on a map of the United States which includes Goochland, Virginia, and Mexico. 

This is an exciting time for the children as well as their teachers.  Other teachers from Byrd Elementary School, including Mrs. Szakaly, Mrs. Browning, and Mrs. Fulton, joined the excitement this year, too!

To learn more about the Amazing Monarch, go to http://www.monarchwatch.com  or Journey North:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth

Marcy Meiller is a teacher at B.E.S.

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