Our butterflies have come out of their chrysalis! We actually saw 2 of them nibble their way out, just this morning! Our life cycle is complete and we are so happy to have them.
Fun Fact: A caterpillar's body completely dissolves inside the chrysalis. They will basically get "put back together" as a butterfly, with pigment to dye the scales on their wings. That is the red stuff you see on the white disc.
Fun Fact: We will feed our butterflies the juice from a Cutie until we let them go in the wild. They love to eat everything from flower nectar, to rotten fruit, to turtle tears!
The metamorphosis of a butterfly, ladybug, and even honey bees is incredible. A true demonstration of life itself. It is always a great day to see my students see a butterfly emerge.
Your child has brought home their Butterfly Observation Journal. Take a few minutes to talk to them about it and how amazing butterflies truly are.
This is a fun day where we get to investigate earthworms. We learned about the special job they have and how they are so important to the earth and our garden. One of the amazing books we read was Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser.
Then the fun part began! We got to get up close and personal with some real earthworms! Because Kindergarten already had a worm house, we had the worms visit us for a couple of days.
Bella was extra brave during her investigation!
Avery and his worm got along just fine.
After we had a little time to get to know each other, each student did an investigation page. Then we tallied our responses. Needless to say, most of the worms were slimy, wiggly, and long.
Today we made Worms in Dirt!
If you don't already know, Worms in Dirt is chocolate pudding and crushed chocolate cookies to make the soil. Then we put in gummy worms. (No one wanted the real worms in their cup, go figure!)
We have been studying the pond for about two weeks now. We have covered ducks, snails, swans, frogs, fish, and are doing turtle next week. I have included some of our activities we did.
Swans
This was a fun part of the pond unit because, not only did we learn about swans, but we compared three versions of The Ugly Duckling. The first version was the original story, the second was a story we had in our spelling series and the third was the Disney movie in which the duckling does not grow up.The kids did a really good job of explaining the differences and similarities between the stories.
After we did our literature portion, we did our swan page in our Pond Journal and then made these EASY paper swans.
They liked making them into hearts!!
Frogs
Frogs are, obviously, a main part of our pond week. We watched this awesome video and the kids got to listen to the sounds of frogs. There were surprised that some do not RIBBIT. Some even scream!
After our frog hat we made a paper plate frog with a party blower tongue. Major hit with the 5-year-old scene. He isn't the cutest frog on earth, but he is a lot of fun! Grab the template here.
Snails
What kid doesn't love snails? We had fun painting these little guys. I drew with a white crayon on the paper plate and they watercolored it. When the swirl appeared they thought it was magic. We cut out his body and added some eyes. He is probably the cutest snail ever. Grab the template here.
I have finished my second My Science Journal! This one is all about BUGS!
I have had so much success with my Ocean Journal that I knew right away that I had to make one for bugs. My students learned so much and have even improved their writing. They are writing on their own, using their imaginations and the words they know or can sound out. This has been the best year of Kindergarten writing I have ever had!
This unit includes:
1. ants
2. butterflies
3. worms
4. honey bees
5. ladybugs
6. grasshoppers
7. snails
Life cycles include: ant, butterfly, worm, honey bee, and ladybugs.
Labeling the parts of an ant.
Life cycle of a butterfly and the parts of a butterfly.
