Spring has Sprung or nearly has for all our friends in the Northern Hemisphere as we downunder head into autumn and kiss goodbye to what has been a long hot summer I'm actually kinda looking forward to feeling a little bit cooler, sleeping better, wearing different clothes, winter sports and all that comes with the cooler weather.
Every summer I always buy some butterfly-friendly plants and love to just watch nature at its most marvelous but this year it was just nature at its most raw.
My first lot of caterpillars died as I went away for Christmas and on my return they had run out of leaves, I suspected it would happen but I just couldn't kill any of the multitudes of caterpillars before I left - I tried to but I couldn't do it - so they all died. There's a lesson there I am sure.
So I bought some more plants and started again but this time I was very diligent with keeping the number of eggs to a minimum much easier to flick off an egg. All was going great and my son and I were lucky enough to catch the moment when one lovely big fat caterpillar turned into a chrysalis!
But then disaster struck, the next morning we woke to find our chrysalis was gone and a praying mantis sat licking its chomps, if you look closely at the photo you will see the remains of our chrysalis sitting on the leaf just below the praying mantis.
It was all a bit distressing and to be honest by then I was ready to throw in the flag and decided I wasn't a fan of praying mantises anymore!
Anyway, this did inspire me to create a butterfly unit as I just think it is such a great unit to study.
First grab a plant, here it's a swan plant but up north you guys call it milkweed, you will have to pop it outside to attract some butterflies and hence some eggs but take my advice and cull some eggs because they are ferocious eaters.
I always like to start with a KWL chart
It's always interesting to find out what prior knowledge the kids have and also what they want to know.
And of course, there are lots of great books and youtube videos out there so investigate your library, google or amazon
The unit focuses on life cycle and touches briefly on the parts of a butterfly and focuses on the monarch butterfly and the words caterpillar and chrysalis.
There are puzzles.
A simple four piece puzzle, 2 piece match the picture and label and then I have included a more detailed version for children to match the image with the sentence.
Photos as well as clipart.
There are word bank cards and posters set these up around your nature corner or pop the word cards in your writing center.
Worksheets exploring the life cycle and parts of a butterfly I always like to include a couple of different versions so you can choose what is right for your class.
I love a crown and I find so do little kids, I also find it can be a fun and easy end of unit assessment.
I have included 2 one with a cut, paste and order the life cycle and one with the images already there so color/colour and make.
Little foldable book in 3 versions b/w, colored/coloured and b/w with lines in which children add their own text.
Some writing ideas and a spinning life cycle craftivity.
The whole unit explores lots of fun and engaging ways to explore butterflies so if you are interested grab it now as it's half price for a limited time $1:50
Grab it here.
Whilst your there follow my shop to be the first to know about my freebies and new products are always 50% off for the first 48 hours or often longer because I regularily forget to change the price.
Enjoy spring or autumn whatever season you are entering
and thanks so much for stopping by
Annie :-)
