School Trip to Butterfly Lodge

The school has organised a trip to the Butterfly Lodge, Oh'Farms (Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms) near Sembawang road. One of P2 Stellar curriculum topics in this semester is 'A Butterfly is Born' so the purpose of this trip is to bring classroom learning to reality. Ethan pestered me to sign up as a Parent Volunteer for this trip since I am still on school term break. I agreed to sign up as a Parent Volunteer (PV) for this trip without much thought as I felt that I won't be so lucky to be picked by his teacher (hahaa)..

A week before the trip, Ethan came out from school telling me that I was selected to be the PV for the trip to the Butterfly Lodge. I asked him whose parent is going with the class as well and he said only me! I got to know later that there were 5 parents who had signed up and I turned out to lucky one. Only until then, Caden shared with me that we will need to enter into an enclosed area with butterflies flying around freely and one of the butterflies even landed on his head back then!

The day before the trip, Ethan came back from school telling me not to scream the next day at the Butterfly Lodge when I see those butterflies. I was also told not to apply insect repellent since we will be up close and personal with them (oh gosh!)... Obviously, the information downloaded at that point was not going to be very helpful for me..

I couldn't sleep the night before, probably because I got so nervous about confronting the insects (flying ones) and caterpillars, pupa, etc...

So the day came, we left school at 8 am and travelled together in a school bus (it's been ages since I last rode on a school bus, so the feeling was nostalgic).

We were first briefed by Mr. Oh (he should be the owner) on the life cycle of a butterfly (like the eggs come in 3 colours), how caterpillars breathe (through spiracles), what do butterflies eat (only liquid food - nectar).  I learnt that butterflies are important to us as they help to pollinate the flowers, form food for other animals (e.g, birds, lizards, spiders, etc) and the presence of butterflies are good indicators in assessing how healthy/clean the environment is.

After his briefing, he brought out some stick insects to show the class and Ethan was super-excited with them!

E was trying to squeeze to the front to see the stick insect

Always brave enough to hold (weird) insects

Classmates looking on as E took over the insect 2nd time

We were then invited to the enclosure (my most feared area!)

E walking behind Guan Lin and Lucas in the Butterfly Lodge

In the Butterfly Lodge, we could see the stick insects again and Ethan rushed to hold them again:

Offering to hold the stick insect again!!!

There were 2 stick insects on the guide's body

E managed to take over 1 stick insect

Still attracted by the stick insect and didn't observe the butterflies around

Looking at how stick insects camouflaged themselves

I think the trip was educational and informative.. but because weather was extremely hot and humid, and the information downloaded during the briefing at the holding area was quite cramped, the children were mostly not attentive after 10 minutes (including E). We took the school bus back to school at 10.15am so the whole trip was rather short.

I spent some time getting to know some of his classmates during break time and was quite popular with his classmates because I prepared snacks and distributed to his classmates. Some of his classmates were rather cute but some others were actually more rowdy.. so I sorta dropped subtle hints to my boy to ask him to mingle with those whom I really like =p

I will definitely be more selective next time, before I sign myself up as a PV for their outings! This trip is traumatising enough for me! Having said that, the best benefit of being a PV is that I get to take pictures of my child's experiences during the trip, and getting to know his playmates better!

Just a confession to make, on the day of the trip, I pasted a mosquito patch on my T-shirt in hope that maybe the smell will repel the butterflies, although it's supposed to combat against mosquitoes, tsk tsk..