Mole and the Baby Bird

While the title may lead you to believe we had excitement in our backyard... It's just that, a title, of a book in my reading curriculum.

We read the book about little Mole that finds a baby bird. He keeps calling the bird his pet while Mama Mole says it's not a pet but a wild animal. Mole feeds Baby Bird and builds a cage, not wanting to believe it is wild animal. Mama Mole calls in reinforcement. Grandpa takes Mole out to a hill to see other birds flying free and help Mole understand that his bird is a bird, not a pet. So they go home and release home. Later Mole is playing and Bird is flying around nearby. The end.

After reading the book, we talked about how the bird felt being trapped in a cage, what finally made Mole change hide mind ,etc. For the kids, I used them as an example. They always love to find nature the playground, whether it is a rock, leaf, flower, ladybug, roly poly or worse...an acorn that later spouts out the little creatures that have been munching on it inside the shell!, and try to bring it in with them. We then talked about our rule of leaving nature outside and how it fit with this story.

While doing this, a sweet little friend raises his hand. He starts telling the me and the class how he used to have a pet caterpillar. He found him outside, took him around with him and loved him. So much. "Then one day, he got yost. I couldn't find him anywhere." As he continued his story, I see he is getting sad. Then he just buries his little face into his hands and his story was over because he was so sad. It was precious...and funny.

I had to be quick n my feet with my response so I said, "do you know why you probably never found your caterpillar?"
Kid: No, why Mrs. Snow?
Me: why happens to caterpillars as they grow?
I got various answers... They grow! They get squished! And then the answer I was hoping for... They turn into butterflies!
Me: you're right! They turn into butterflies so you probably never found the caterpillar because he changed into a butterfly so you didn't recognize him.

At that thought, my little friend dried his eyes up and then forgot all about his "pet caterpillar".