Butterfly Release

Fly Away Home!

Our butterflies finally arrived! The munchkins were intrigued and mesmerized by them for the two days that we waited for all four of them to emerge and dry out.  We were a little sad, but happy at the same time, as we gathered with our preschool class on a warm, bright afternoon to release them.

It took a while (and a little coaxing) to get some of the butterflies to leave the pavilion, but they were so beautiful to watch as they fluttered off.  We were lucky that they left the pavilion one at a time, so we could take the time to follow them around a bit!

Except...

one little guy decided to stick around for a while.

What an amazing opportunity this was!

We gathered around it and realized that it was trying to find something to eat.  How did we know?  It had uncurled its proboscis and seemed to be trying to eat the grass!

So we gathered the oranges that were in the pavilion and some of the munchkins picked some dandelions and we placed them with the butterfly.  It was so neat to watch him jump right over to the food and begin drinking.  The munchkins were so excited to be watching it all first hand!

We became worried when two of the other classes came out for a quick recess.  What would happen if the older kids wanted to play baseball?  He was right in the middle of the field! 

The solution was so simple and absolutely heartwarming...

Take him to Mary!

So we picked him up on (right on the orange) and carried him across the street to our parish Marian prayer garden.  You can see some of the munchkins already invoking Mary's aid!

And here he is in his new home at the foot of Mary.



What else can I say?

Beautiful!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

The Very Eric Carle Room: Part Two

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

The second week of our Eric Carle unit had us focusing on the change that happened to the very hungry caterpillar as he spun his little "house" and emerged as a beautiful butterfly.  And this fit so perfectly into the Easter season too!

The munchkins were excited to learn that they we would be creating another (actually our last) lapbook.  This one was sort of a "mini", as we finished it in only a week, so it wasn't as packed full as some of our other lapbooks!  It was beautiful and fun to create one-the-less. 

We began with some copy work for the cover, choosing a wonderfully appropriate verse from the Bible:  2 Corinthians 5:17.

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Each munchkins also created a cool butterfly to adorn the other side of the folder.  Of course, they used bilateral symmetry!

We continued to develop an understanding of the life cycle of the caterpillar/butterfly by creating several different life cycle visuals.  One was a fun little life cycle wheel that was added to the lapbook (but not until after the munchkins took the time to play with it together).

The munchkins were thrilled to realize that our real caterpillars were completing all these life cycle changes on their own as we learned about them.  You can image the excitement when it was discovered that we had our first chrysalis!  We even learned the official name for that stage was "pupae".  And we had four of them!  It happened so fast, too. 



What ended up being one of the most fascinating things about watching this whole process was the fact that the munchkins recognized that the larvae had molted and left behind a bunch of old skin right next to where they were hanging.  Really cool!  And such a great opportunity to understand and use all the new vocabulary we were learning.

We did a few other fun activities, using butterflies to help us practice our color words in a neat little "color by number" paper...

and to introduce the idea of fractions (1/2 and 1/4).

The munchkins created one last butterfly project to add to the inside of the lapbook.  This one was a three dimensional butterfly that "opens" its wings when the lapbook is opened.

We finished out our lapbooks by adding a flap dedicated to how butterflies protect themselves and creating a diagram of that labeled the body parts of a butterfly.

Each munchkins also added a little creative writing prompt:

If I were a butterfly, I would...

"...be a red and purple and blue and green butterfly"

"...fly to the moon."

"...fly all day and live in a pink flower."

Too fun!

And of course...how do we end any week? 

Food, of course!

Butterfly Jelly Sandwiches

Until next time...

Giggles,
Mrs. D. 

Our Lady of Fatima

The 13th Day

We had the honor of celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima together on Friday, May 13.  The munchkins enjoyed hearing the story and coloring an image of Our Lady with the three children of Portugal.  The munchkins glued the image to the center of a "sun".



Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for Us!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

Frisbee Fun

The Frisbee Club

Our school recently began a Spring Frisbee Club, open to any and all students on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school.  It became an instant hit and even some of the kindergarten munchkins joined in the fun!

Little boy munchkins learned to play...

And little girls munchkins too!

And one of these days, they'll be right in there with the big kids playing Ultimate Frisbee!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

The Very Eric Carle Room: Part One

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We began our last thematic unit the week after Easter break.  This unit will take us all the way to the end of the year (if you can believe it's that time already!). 

This last unit is all about Eric Carle...one of my favorite children's authors!  Over the course of the next several weeks, we will use several of his popular books to explore insects and other critters.  The first on the list: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

This story lends itself so nicely to retelling and sequencing, so we had several activities that encouraged this skill.  From a tiny stuffed caterpillar and a tiny version of the book, to BIG story pieces that the caterpillar could actual "eat", the munchkins had fun reading and retelling this favorite story together. 

The munchkins also had fun making their own story pieces and hungry caterpillar (from a Parmesan cheese container).  The lid opens like a mouth, so he can eat the story pieces! Now the story can be told at home too!

We sequenced the story in other ways too.  Using the pattern of the text, which focused on days of the week, each munchkin cut the items the caterpillar ate and placed them in order according to the correct day.

Some munchkins just enjoyed retelling the story together using our pocket chart.  

We used the hungry caterpillar to practice some other skills, too.  It was fun to watch the munchkins work through an addition and subtraction practice page.  Each segment of the caterpillar's body had a number 1 - 10 on it.  The munchkins had to cut and glue a number equation to the segment that had the corresponding sum or difference. 



Then of course, we had to do some fantastic writing!  Each munchkin had the chance to write his or her own page for a class big book (and I do mean BIG)! 

The sentence structure and conventions used by the munchkins was just terrific!  Who would believe these are kindergarten writers?

Probably the project that was the most fun was the "longer than long" word caterpillar!  Each munchkins created a unique caterpillar by adding body segments that contained words.  The only rule?  The munchkins had to be able to read each word that was added.  Some of the caterpillars were incredibly long!  I guess that means we have great readers in our group!

Cutting and gluing...

Getting longer...

And longer...

And longer!

Well...it looks as though we covered some math, some reading and some writing.  What about science?  This whole unit (from start to finish) is a great way to explore life cycles and insects.  So what better way to experience it first hand than to bring in some caterpillars?  The munchkins learned all sorts of new vocabulary, like metamorphosis, chrysalis and larvae.  And the caterpillars were such fun to watch.  They tripled in size in almost a week...amazing!

When we first received them, they were so little!

But by the end, we didn't even need the magnifying glasses.

What will happen next?

We ended the week making two special little caterpillar friends.  One was added to the back bulletin board and the other was...

added to our tummies!

Gotta love recipe day!



Next we'll be on to butterflies...

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.