We have been fortunate to have 7 monarch caterpillars in our classroom.  They are incredibly fascinating and fun to watch and we have used them to practice habits of good scientists including observing, drawing, and perhaps most importantly questioning.  Some of the things students noticed were that the caterpillars have black, yellow, and white stripes, they have lots of legs, they grow fast, they eat a lot, they walk upside down, they have four antennae,  and sometimes two caterpillars will go on the same leaf.  We also thought of some really good questions:  How do they walk upside down?  How do they shed their skins?  How do they grow and change so fast?  How do they attach themselves to a leaf or the ceiling before they turn into chrysalids? How long will they be chrysalids? Where does the gold on the chrysalis come from?   How can they go from black, yellow, and white to black and orange?