Cicada's- Up Close

We hear them chirping away as a beautiful background to our day, but what do we really know about Cicadas?

Maya found an interesting discovery at her house and brought it in for us all to enjoy and look at. It was a cicada husk. How fascinating!

First, we took turns to have a look and see what parts we could see, the husk looked like it was living but it did not move. We found out that it as an exoskeleton that shed from a cicada.

Many of the tamariki went on a hunt around the garden to see if they could find any more and guess what??! They did an it was very exciting. Felix and Otto were really taken by the husk hunt and wanted to continue looking for them for most of the morning.

We have had wonderful drawings of cicadas, talks about the life-cycle (which is fascinating)! We have researched with the tablet so the tamariki can witness a cicada emerging from the husk and read some interesting facts in books. Did you know that cicada’s only spend around 2 weeks above the ground?! These sneaky little insects spend most of their life underground, drinking nutrients from the tree roots as nymphs. After years they tunnel up to the surface to find a mate and lay their eggs before the cycle continues underground again.

Together we decided to make a display of this on our wall. Come and have a look by our stairs! It is great to collaborate, we worked as a team and it is going to be an ongoing display that will develop with our learning. Chloe, Stevie and Harrison were great at cutting out the blades of grass. Otto and Felix helped paint the tree trunk. Elle created the tree- top using a Nikau frond that Nikki had brought in from her home, first she created her own picture and the tree top came up beautifully. It was decided that she could paint a larger one would for our display tree. It created the perfect pattern!  Otto came up with the idea to place some REAL cicada husks on our stump, brilliant idea. We have been collecting and can't wait to add them. 

We even have more little insects joining our wall daily, beautiful creations made from our tamariki.

Since, many more of the children have found husks, bringing them in to share with our Uxbridge friends too, special taonga from nature. We really value these special treasures that come in as we all learn from them and they spark interest in many children. And so the journey begins, as we hear the sweet sound of the cicadas we can smile as we know what they have been up to! We are exploring our natural world.