Caught in the web of life

At our preschool we have our lunch outside, on the veranda. This is followed with free play outdoors. The children often use this time to bake mudcakes, build dams in the rain puddles, play hide and seek in the tall grass or just roam around. We finish this time with quiet time for meditation and relaxation, before we get back into our busy preschool programme routines.

Meditation time is a very special time of the day, enjoyed by all. We take out our mats and pillows on our deck and lay or sit down to listen to a special story or some quiet music. Sometimes we listen to the howling wind, or the rain on the veranda roof or we move our mats onto the grass and watch the clouds.

Today our meditation time turned out quite different. As we were listening to a spider story, a cabbage butterfly flew up on our deck, swirled around and got caught in a spider web up on the veranda roof. We watched it struggling, trying to get out. It wasn't for long when the children started to feel sorry for the butterfly and wanted to rescue it. "We don't want it to die". "We want to put it in the garden". A discussion evolved, the needs of the butterfly versus the needs of the spider, a lesson about the web of life. The children were adamant that the butterfly should live and a rescue mission was executed.

The butterfly must have been traumatised by the experience as it flew immediately into another spiderweb. This time a waiting spider immediately attacked it. Quickly the children again took the butterfly out of the web and carefully placed it amongst the flowers in the garden. One lucky butterfly, and a not so lucky, hungry spider. In the child's eye, an act of compassion and guardianship.

You can read a children's version of the Web of Life story told by a common garden spider on the Kidsplanet website.