Homeschool Creations

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Preschool Corner: The Butterfly Version

This week, the big news {and excitement} was butterflies!! All of the kids have been fascinated watching our caterpillars grow like crazy and we were able to watch two of them go into their chrysalis at the same time.

A little later in the week, we watched as one of our earlier chrysalis broke and thought we had a little tragedy on our hands. If you want to read a little more about it, you can read about the Birth of a Butterfly on No Ordinary Moments.

BUT...after a little intervention, we had our first butterfly - a girl! In the pictures below you can see one of the caterpillars a few hours before the big change {top left}. The butterfly that emerged is shown in the other three pictures ~ if you look closely, you can see the crumpled wing that she was sporting because she couldn't get herself completely released from the chrysalis without some help.



Zachary pulled out his journal to draw a picture of our caterpillar tank. For some reason he drew four chrysalis'. If you can see the black dots at the bottom of the picture....well, the caterpillars do leave a lot of poop around. :) Of course, he would choose to draw that!



We also talked about the life cycle of a butterfly {in addition to watching it up close and personal!}. Zachary made a little 'book' that he had to sequence in the correct order. Yes, I know he's coloring the egg black...but he thought it was poop. Again. And really, with the amount in our tank, I can't blame the poor kid!



Zachary also had fun working on a butterfly life cycle maze.



Some great butterfly books/printables and sites:
Zachary is really enjoying having more 'school time' this year and begs to do certain things with me ~ spelling being the main thing! We do the majority of his spelling time on the whiteboard with our tile letters, but he wanted to write on paper like the girls this week too!



Our fruit and veggie cards also made an appearance this week too. I gave Zachary all the veggies along with the matching word cards and he sorted them out and matched the picture up with the name card by sounding them out.



Patterns and figuring out how to create a shape using various other shapes was something else that Zachary really enjoyed too this week. He started out by creating several bugs, shapes, and kept pulling out cards to complete until I had to take them away...



That's the quick 'sum-up' in our house this week! :) Can't wait to see what's been happening in your preschool time!

About the Preschool Corner:

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our "preschool time" with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this blog post so that your readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you've been doing in your house this week!




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10 Comments:

  • I am so impressed with everything that Zachary can do - what a difference one year can make! And the lifecycle of butterfly up close and personal seems to impress all the preschoolers. I wonder if Anna's preschool might do it during their school year - O will ask them. I wanted to ask about the pattern game from the last picture - is it Melissa and Doug? I am looking for a nice pattern set for Anna, but not sure what to choose.

    By Blogger Natalie PlanetSmarty, At August 21, 2009 at 11:29 PM  

  • Your butterfly pictures are amazing! It is awesome that you were able to capture that on camera. Zachary had a super week. It is super that he is sounding out words and doing so well with his spelling and eagerness to do his school work. I've been reading this blog for about a year now and he is growing up and maturing so much lately!!

    By Blogger Susana, At August 21, 2009 at 11:52 PM  

  • Oh I love your butterfly theme. Great stuff.

    By Blogger Deborah, At August 22, 2009 at 3:59 AM  

  • This is so exciting! We brought our "callerpitters" (Cy talking) inside yesterday with their beloved fennel. We can't wait to watch the show. Thanks for posting some great ideas to incorporate some fun learning! :)

    By Anonymous Amanda, At August 22, 2009 at 8:46 AM  

  • Oh I am so excited. Thanks for the links for the butterfly activities. We are waiting for our caterpillars to come in the mail!!!

    By Blogger Mama Jenn, At August 22, 2009 at 5:47 PM  

  • just curious...
    Zachary is learning spelling now.. he still can't read, right? Isn't it better to teach spelling after learning to read?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At August 23, 2009 at 1:07 AM  

  • Zachary actually is reading now, but I will say that the All About Spelling Level 1 is great for working on letter sounds and helping kids sound out those initial words - it walks you through the whole process.

    Zachary is learning how to segment words by the letter sounds - i.e. CAT is C-A-T and he pulls down each letter individually to spell it out.

    Does that make sense?

    By Blogger Jolanthe, At August 23, 2009 at 12:14 PM  

  • Got it!
    I know there's a reason why Im reading your blog. Im learning from you.

    Thanks.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At August 24, 2009 at 1:29 AM  

  • I just discovered your blog today while I was searching for alphabet activities for my daughter. I have been doing lots of toddler work with her but she's going to be 3 this fall so I'm looking for some preschool aged activities. I love all of your ideas!! And I can't wait to use some!!!

    By Anonymous Melanie, At August 26, 2009 at 8:26 PM  

  • Hey!! I am hoping maybe you can answer a question for me. My kiddos and I have wathed a caterpillar in our backyard turn into a chrysalis and are eagerly waiting the butterfly we will see. Do you think we can take the little branch it is attached to and put it in a breathable jar to watch so we don't accidentally miss it?? Or do you think we may kill it instead?? THanks for any input on this.

    By Blogger Jenn, At August 30, 2009 at 6:02 PM  

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