Life Cycle of a Mealworm

Good afternoon, Oak Room Family!  The children continue to observe, interact with and study our mealworm friends.  Since we have watched mealworms transform into pupae and now a pupa into a darkling beetle the children have taken additional interest in the mealworm books that our class is borrowing.  We have discussed the stages of the mealworm life cycle and even though we are sometimes mixed up on the order of the stages they are all interesting.  Yesterday the children discussed a plan after reading a mealworm book to draw the life cycle of a mealworm with markers today using a picture reference and it was very interesting to see that as the children drew their diagrams they began including different elements of habitats that we have been discussing in the classroom.  It is always exciting to watch the different ways that children process new concepts and ideas and weave them together.  

GI: "This is the grown up beetle and this is the mealworm and this is a tree and the mealworm is climbing down off the tree and the beetle is jumping and here is some eggs."

BW: "Egg, mealworm, pupa,  and adult beetle then eggs... now I made a human in a house"

RN: "Egg into the larva into the pupa into the darkling beetle... its a tree"

CS: "This is the tree with the red leaves and this is the stem and this is the mealworm"

NN: "This is a rainbow mealworm egg, the dots are the mealworm's food and the circles help it hold on"

RN: "There's me throwing food out to the mealworm and there's a butterfly right there starting to fly off, those are butterflies"

NN: "This is a mealworm home and this is a mealworm egg and this is a mealworm egg starting to crack...a mealworm comes out when it cracks"

IF: "This is the mealworm and the rest of the mealworms are the mealworm's friends and this is the dirt and these are the train tracks"

Have a wonderful night, we hope you can all stay warm!