School Time With My Father's World : Bb: Butterfly

Bb: Butterfly

Words to Remember: God can make me new. 

I decided not to put the unit number down for this post seeing as I skipped ahead to do the Butterfly unit. We finished the Ii: Insect unit a couple of weeks ago and I had additional printables from Little Learning Lovies that went with the Bugs in the Garden Lovie Pack that I wanted to use. There were several fun things with butterflies, so I decided to skip ahead.

Here are some of the fun things we have done these last two weeks.

As we were getting ready to have our lesson time the one day the mail carrier showed up with this box.

The children didn't know what it was, even when we started reading about butterflies. I refused to open the box until after our lesson was done. 

I tried something different for this day. Instead of having all the girls working on the same thing, I made some "stations." They took turns doing the craft, playing with play dough and doing their handwriting. I think I will continue this as it really seemed less stressful (except for when Hannah threw a fit because she didn't want to stop playing with the play dough).

They made caterpillars for  the ongoing Butterfly Life Cycle project we were doing. I chose 3 colors of paint (the only 3 I could find) and poured some of each color on a separate paper plate. They used milk jug lids to create a circle pattern caterpillar. Amelia used an ABCABC pattern for her first caterpillar. Both Tabitha and Amelia made more than one and used different patterns too. 

Hannah loves playing with play dough.

Tabitha working on her B handwriting sheet. 

After they switched stations Tabitha had fun making a play dough caterpillar

and butterfly.

Hannah worked on her caterpillar.

And Amelia made a butterfly too, when it was her turn.

Tabitha started with an AAB pattern caterpillar.
(These patterns were all her choice.)

Hannah has her B handwriting and letter find page. 

After we were done with our work for the day the girls finally got to see what was in the box. 

Such perfect timing as we were making our caterpillars.

The next day, they had a handwriting page to complete. This one came out of the Little Learning Lovies pack. It is a part of a complete poem called The Caterpillar.

We added some math by measuring the caterpillars. 

I made them each a little ruler out of card stock because the ruler we have has so many lines in between the inches I decided I wanted one a bit simpler. I just included lines to the inch, half inch and quarter inch. We measured the caterpillars, who ranged from 3/4 of an inch to 1 inch long (they had already grown a 1/4 of an inch from the day before). Then I had the girls measure 3/4 inch and 1 inch lines in a jar outline I printed out (4 per page). 

Then they were to draw a caterpillar with each line. 

The idea was to measure them daily, but we sort of forgot over the weekend. I had wanted to create a book. Then they formed their "J"s and I didn't want the girls going anywhere near them. 

This Monday we had a Butterfly Life Cycle Muffin Tin. You can see the details over at my Muffin Tin Monday post and my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen post.

The girls used watercolor paints to paint butterflies for the Life Cycle project.

And look, our caterpillars are already in their chrysalis stage, before I could get a chance to get a picture of them in their "J"s. 

The girls glued a tiny pompom on a construction paper leaf for the egg stage of our Life Cycle Project. 

Then we made chrysalises for the project.

You will need assorted pompoms, 1 craft stick per chrysalis for stability, gauze and white glue.

The girls first made the caterpillar along the craft stick. 

When the glue was dry we used the gauze to wrap them up. I placed a small amount of glue on one end of the back of the craft stick. 

Then I held the gauze as the girls turned their caterpillar around and around until it was all wrapped up.

We glued the ends down.

Ta da, a chrysalis.

Here are all of the stages of the life cycle:

We found some small branches along the road while taking a walk earlier in the week. I broke them into usable sizes and created a Butterfly Life Cycle Mobile. 

I also had something just for Hannah to do. I cut out 6 smaller leaves and printed out some caterpillars. Amelia wrote the numbers 1 through 5 on the leaves for her sister (one number per leaf). Then I placed the correct amount of glue on each leaf (to correspond with each number) as Hannah helped me count. She was able to give me the correct leaf when I asked for each specific number, I was impressed. I was not completely confident that she recognized her numbers.

Once the glue was dry I formed a little book by attaching them with a metal fastener/brad.

 A couple of nights ago, I surprised the girls with a Butterfly dinner. I used a hot dog for the body and raviolis for the wings. I added cauliflower to the top of the plate for clouds and tiny pieces of cauliflower for antennae. 

We read a few butterfly books. We probably would have read more if I had remembered to put them on hold. And for the life of me, can you believe I couldn't find our Very Hungry Caterpillar book!

We read a simple life cycle of the butterfly book. And we have also been going through True or False: Butterflies & Caterpillars by Melvin and Gilda Berger. 

I love how a question is asked on the right side page. For example, "Butterflies have two pairs of wings. True or False?" And the girls get to answer the question before turning the page to see if they are correct. The photographs in the book are beautiful and detailed. 

And we enjoyed the photographs in the book, All color Book of Butterflies by Robert Goodden.

The girls enjoyed finding butterflies they recognized and I enjoyed finding exotic looking butterflies and reading some facts about them.

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