All About Butterflies

Butterflies are one of my absolutely, positively favorite things to teach.  I order caterpillars every year, and the kids just go crazy for them.  They don't even realize how much science, writing, drawing and math they are learning from these little creepy crawlies.

I wrote a HUGE butterfly unit in college, and have spent the last year on and off revamping it and making it super cute.  We just got our caterpillars on Wednesday, and are already knee deep in observing them, researching them and learning tons of new vocabulary.  One of my little girls was on the playground with a glow stick today saying "Look at my proboscis!"  (aka butterfly tongue).  Precious!

 I used our ELMO document camera to project the caterpillars onto the wall.  The cup went from being a few inches in real life to about 5 feet in diameter on the wall... crazy!  The kids were captivated with watching them crawl around.

 This is my favorite.  These girls are sitting at the science table researching butterflies while observing the caterpillars in their little cup.  They did this during their free choice time.  Budding scientists = SO CUTE!

 Here are some of the observations they made in their butterfly science notebooks.  I am SO impressed with their writing {remember, these babies are in pre-K}.  Isn't it amazing what kids will do when they are super engaged and excited?!

The caterpillars made a web.

The caterpillar is climbing up.

I'm sure I will have SO much more to share with you as we keep learning about butterflies.  In the meantime, I have finally finished my butterfly unit.  I have legit spent a year on and off working on this sucker, and am pretty dang proud of it.  It is over 100 pages of science, reading, writing, math and art fun.  Most things included are shown below, but I have added even more since.  

Check it out {HERE} while it's still on sale!

This All About Butterflies unit includes:

• Suggested Book List
• Common Core Alignment
• Parent Letter
• Vocabulary Cards
• Making and Checking Predictions sheets
• Caterpillars in the Classroom nonfiction text
• Scientific Observation Poster {How Scientists Observe}
• Butterfly Observation Science Notebook
• Close Reading Lesson Ideas with Posters
• Calendar for recording the stages of life
• Life Cycle Poster
• Life Cycle Cut and Paste
• Life Cycle File Folder Game
• Butterfly Report Writing {with prewriting activities}
• Fiction vs. Nonfiction Venn Diagram
• Vocabulary Posters and Definitions
• Butterfly Labeling
• Memory Game
• Patterning Activity {with recording sheet}
• Story Problems
• Butterfly Handprint Art
• Life Cycle Mobile
• Symmetry Art