Fowers for the Butterflies

Yes we cannot get away from talking about butterflies, moths, and dragonflies!  This has been a great opportunity for us to  engage in other subjects.  We draw all of the different insects and now when we draw, we can tell you where the butterfly is, where the flowers are, what color they are, how many there are, what they are doing, and we even spell and write our names on the back of our papers! ;0) 

Not bad for being only 2 years old!!

  We have been talking about what colors the flowers are that the butterflies are on in all of our books.  We know that butterflies like flowers, but we still think that caterpillars AND butterflies eat grass! ;0)

As we are continuing to investigate what the butterflies eat, we think it is the PERFECT time for us to create our very own butterfly garden outside in our playground!

Starting next week, the children can bring in his/her very own plant for our garden.  We have emailed the families in our class about the garden, and there are links included to help everyone determine what they would like to bring for the garden.

Here is a sample of what we do when we start talking about butterflies.........We all like to draw, while Aidan takes the book, and talks and talks and talks about what is in the book!

He is still convinced, however, that caterpillars hatch out of BALLS, not eggs! ;0)    lol

Look What Happened To Our Caterpillars!

Look!  There are butterflies in there!

Finally our butterflies came out of their cocoons!  We were so excited to see them fly in the cage, that it made us start "flapping our wings" and run around the room!

Luck for us, we have a big playground, and we went outside to be butterflies!

And yes!!!!!!!!  We were like REAL butterflies, because we got to put on butterfly wings!  We had so much fun!

We also take time out each day to sit around the board and talk about butterflies.  We put them on the board, talk about what color they are, how many there are, and about the life cycle.

And we are so smart that we can tell the difference between the moths and the butterflies ;0)  Ryan lets everyone know which ones are the moths!

We did let our butterflies fly away last night, but our eager little children were so fast to open the cage, that we didn't get a picture of the release :0(  lol!

the well

the last day at the village the team assembled the pump for the well. the village will be celebrating their new well for weeks to come & they started the huge celebration right after the pump was installed for all the team's hard work. the people of the village were so thankful that they planned a wonderful celebration with music, gifts & families from the village made speech's about how wonderful the team was & everything they accomplished for their people. the village built a palm alter around the well before the team got their that morning to surprise them & thank goodness they didn't have to tear it down to build the pump because as you can see it is beautiful. all the children were trying to peek through the palms as the team was finishing the well to see what it looked like, everyone was very excited. after the ribbon cutting one of the older women of the village couldn't wait to be the first to taste the clean water. what an amazing experience to be a part of, something that i know paul will never forget & he's so thankful that he got to be a part of it!!!

final & hardest step of building the pump for the well

finishing the pump/well

the AMAZING team

the palm alter that was built around the well by the people of the village

trying to sneek a peak at the well

the ribbon cutting ceramony

young pumping water for the elder

the first taste of clean water

drilling a well for water

the type of well they built in guatemala was an unconsolidated or sand wells they are drilled into a formation consisting of soil, sand, gravel or clay material that collapses upon itself. a well is composed of many components; the following is a list of the most important materials used:

casing is used to maintain an open access in the earth while not allowing any entrance or leakage into the well from the surrounding formations. The most popular materials used for casing are black steel, galvanized steel, PVC pipe and concrete pipe.

screen keeps sand and gravel out of the well while allowing groundwater and water from formations to enter into the well. Screen is available in many materials, the most popular being stainless steel and slotted PVC pipe. Screen is used when wells are drilled into unconsolidated materials.

gravel pack is placed around the outside of the screen to prevent sand from entering the well or clogging the screen and to stabilize the well assembly.

here's some pictures of the drilling process through 4 days, we have over 1,500 pictures...we thought that might be to many to look at so here's a few. again if you'd like to help with the water crisis please visit http://www.water.cc/

learning how to work the drill



preparing mud pits



making mud



paul working the drill...look out



now that's a wrench

adding steel pipe as we dig deeper and deeper

lowering the PVC pipe into hole, that's not an easy task

as you add more pipe, the task gets even harder

now that we reach the bottom, we must saw the remaining pipe

emptying the mud pits

standing in the mud pits

WE HAVE WATER!!!

ahhh...refreshing clean water



jaime & manolo (team leaders) proud of the work that was accomplished



here is the well topped off. they drilled 145 feet deep. they're getting ready to pour the cement base.



finishing base

testing the water



water specimens



all the different layers of the earth they went through in 5 ft increments per bag