Butterflies and Caterpillar Fun!

This week we had fun with butterflies and caterpillars. There are so many wonderful units written about butterflies, but I wanted to do something a bit different with my kinders this week. We discussed scientists and how they use their observation skills to learn about the world around them. We talked about how scientists use special instruments like magnifying glasses to make little things look big. We observed that butterfly wings are made of tiny parts called scales. We used the big word metamorphosis and compared the changes that occur in a butterfly to the changes that occur in a frog. I told the children that when we are observing the world around us, we will often use a field guide. A field guide helps us to identify objects that we see in our world.
I projected pictures of butterflies and their caterpillars upon my Promethean board and we observed their shapes and colors. They then sketched their pictures in their field guide booklet. We used watercolors to create a butterfly using symmetry. (They make a pretty bulletin board, don't you think?) We aren't completely finished with our field guide. I think that I will put it in a literacy center rotation this week!







These pictures show examples of the activity the children did to show how butterfly wings are made of scales.









My daughter, the Art major, helped me draw the pictures that we used for observation of our caterpillars and butterflies. Here is an example of one of them!









We also discussed how caterpillars protect themselves and how butterflies use their wings. We labeled the parts of a butterfly and did a butterfly life cycle activity using pasta - I'm sure many of you have done this!














If you are interested in this unit, you can get it from my TPT store! In the next day or so, I have a couple of butterfly freebies to post, but it is getting late now and I need to get some sleep!

Blessings,