Archive for the ‘Caterpillars and Butterflies’ Category

Butterfly Unit Study

16
Jul

We recently had a lot of fun doing a unit about butterflies. My kids don’t like the idea of doing school work during the summer, but we had so much fun that they didn’t even realize they were learning.
We started off by receiving some caterpillars in the mail. They are so tiny when they come! The day we received them the kids drew pictures in their nature journals of what they looked like and then wrote a sentence about what they observed.
Once they reached the chrysalis stage we moved them out of the little cup and into our butterfly net. We made new drawings in our nature journals and added a sentence about what was observed.
Lastly, we were able to observe the butterflies. We kept them for a few days and fed them sugar water.
The kids drew pictures of our painted lady butterflies in their nature journals.
Finally, we let our butterflies go.
We made these fun lapbooks from Around the Kampfire.
On one of the flaps they drew pictures of the life cycle of the butterfly and labeled what each step in the cycle is.
Inside the lapbook, there is a spot to label the parts of a butterfly, a place to write about how butterflies help plants grow, and a little flip book about butterflies. On one of the leaves we added some sesame seeds to represent the eggs. We did a fun activity to help the kids understand pollination. I forgot to take pictures, so I’ll try to describe it. I cut out flower shaped papers and put crunched up cheese puffs in the middle to represent pollen. Then the kids made a butterfly shape out of pipe cleaner. The butterflies flew to a flower and landed on the “pollen.” After walking on the “pollen,” they flew to a different flower shaped piece of paper and walked around on it. They were able to see how the pollen was left behind on the new flower.
Inside the leaves on the trees we wrote more about butterflies, like where they lay their eggs, what they eat, and how they protect themselves.

This was such a fun unit! My kids didn’t even know that they were doing science or practicing their reading and writing.

Week in Review

16
Jul

Week in Review

I can’t believe how fast this school year went by.  This was our last week of 2nd grade (which was almost a month ago, I’m finally all caught up!).  I very clearly remember the first day of school and wondering how I was going to do this homeschooling thing all year long.  But, we made it and we both loved it!

Week in Review

 Hailey on her last day of second grade.  I wish I could slow down time, she is growing up so fast.

Here are some of the things we did during our last week:

Language Arts:

Week in Review

 We finished up our author unit study about Tomie dePaola from Around the Kampfire.  After we read “Little Grunt and the Big Egg,” Hailey created a book about how she would care for a prehistoric pet if she had one.

Week in Review

On the first day of school Hailey made the top picture (which Hunter colored on while I had it hanging up on the wall :-().  On the last day of school, I had her do the same paper and then we compared how her answers had changed or stayed the same.

Science:

Week in Review

Our butterflies hatched!  Hailey was able to watch one come out of its chrysalis.

Week in Review

We started with 5 caterpillars and ended up with 5 butterflies that were all able to fly away.  One seemed to have damaged wings, but when the time came to fly away it was able to fly.

Week in Review

Hailey put together a lapbook all about caterpillars and butterflies to show what she learned during our unit.  Most of the printables are from here and here.

Week in Review

Inside the first flap.  The top shows the life cycle of the butterfly.

Week in Review

On the bottom there is a little booklet where Hailey wrote out the life cycle of a butterfly.  Then she made a butterfly diagram.

Week in Review

This is inside the next flap of the lapbook.

Week in Review

On the top there are butterfly cards that show many of the types of butterflies.  Next to that is some butterfly math.  Underneath is a Venn diagram comparing butterflies and moths.

Week in Review

On the bottom of this flap there is a little booklet that shows the predators of butterflies, another booklet that shows the defenses butterflies use to protect themselves, and also a little booklet to show the lifespan of a butterfly.

Week in Review

This is the last page of the butterfly lapbook.

Week in Review

On the top there a book to show the different flowers that butterflies like.  There is a observation journal where Hailey wrote about what she observed in the caterpillars we watched turn into butterflies.  Then there is a little caterpillar with some facts about caterpillars.

Week in Review

This section has a butterfly Hailey made to show the symmetry of butterfly wings.  There is also information about what caterpillars and butterflies eat.

We had an amazing first year of homeschooling!!  We are enjoying summer vacation right now and waiting for our new baby to arrive 🙂

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.

Tot School

29
Jun

 Hunter is 30 months.

Tot School

Letter W activities:

(Printables for the letter W are from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.)

Tot School

Hunter loves doing the do-a-dot printables for the letters.  I have to make sure we do one of these every week.

Tot School

 Hunter colored his letter W paper and then glued some foam Ws onto the window.

Tot School

I love that Hunter can do these color papers all by himself.  He looks at the color word and then finds the right marker to color with.

Tot School

W is for Worm.
(I usually just do the same letter craft with Hunter that I did with Hailey when she was in tot school… but lately I’ve been asking Hailey for ideas and she has some really creative ideas for our letter crafts and this was one of her great ideas.)

Shapes:

Tot School

We focused on the triangle again this week- I’ve been doing the same shape for 2 weeks since Hunter does not know all of his shapes yet.  Hunter used a triangle shaped block to do some triangle paint stamping.

Manipulatives:

Tot School

This is another activity that I can just put out on the table for Hunter and when wants to, he’ll just sit down and do it without any help.  I put the paper onto a baking sheet and then he puts the magnetic pom poms onto the circles.

Other:

Tot School

We are continuing out caterpillar/butterfly unit.  We ordered some caterpillars and watched them grow and then form a chrysalis.

Tot School

Every day Hailey read us a book about butterflies.  She even used a butterfly puppet when she read on this particular day.  Hunter definitely enjoyed it!

Tot School

Hailey and Hunter painted one side of a butterfly, then folded the other side over to show how butterflies wings are symmetrical.

Tot School

Hunter’s butterfly on the top and Hailey’s on the bottom.

Tot School

These activities are actually from a couple of weeks ago, I’m behind in my posting- so this is Hunter working on Father’s Day picture frame gift.  Hailey painted half of it and Hunter painted the other half.  Later they added some scrapbook stickers of tools but I never took a picture of the finished frame.

Stop by 1+1+1=1 to see what the other tots were up to this week.

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.

Week in Review

27
Jun

Week in Review

I am a couple of weeks behind in posting my weekly reviews, so I am going to do my best to remember what we did.

Language Arts:

We continued our author unit study about Tomie dePaola from Around the Kampfire.

Week in Review

Hailey really enjoyed reading the books we used in our author study!

Week in Review

We read several books that had Big Anthony in them and we talked about cause and effect- how all of the things that Anthony did were the cause, and then the effect was the result of his actions.

Week in Review

Week in Review

On the left, Hailey wrote several things that Anthony did and on the right she wrote the results of those actions.

Week in Review

Hailey also made a post card pretending that Strega Nona had gone on vacation- she decorated the front of the post card and pretended that Strega Nona was in Disney World.

Week in Review

On the back she pretended to be Strenga Nona and  wrote a message to one of Strega Nona’s friends- she decided to write to Bambolona and told her about the fun she was having on vacation.

Science:

Week in Review

Our caterpillars arrived at the beginning of the week to go along with our study of caterpillars and butterflies.

Week in Review

Only a few days after their arrival they were already preparing to go into a chrysalis.

Week in Review

By Friday we only had a couple left that hadn’t formed a chrysalis.

Week in Review

We did a comparison of butterflies and moths and learned how to tell the difference between the two.

Week in Review

Hailey and Hunter painted one side of a butterfly, then folded the other side over to show how butterflies wings are symmetrical.

Week in Review

Hunter’s butterfly on the top and Hailey’s on the bottom.

Week in Review

Every day Hailey read us a book about butterflies.  She even used a butterfly puppet when she read on this particular day.  Hunter definitely enjoyed it!

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

© 2008 - 2011 Our Crafts ~N~ Things | The images on this site are copyrighted by myself or their respective owners.