Science Sunday: Butterflies ~ Identifying, Sketching & a Butterfly House

Our butterfly bush has just been fluttering with activity this week.  There have been so many visitors ~ some looking rather ragged after a long journey.

Identifying:

The kids sat and watched the butterfly bush during lunch ~ I was busy taking pictures.   Whenever we saw a butterfly we couldn’t identify they would grab our butterfly book and see who could find it first. 

  

It is extremely hard to identify butterflies unless you have a book that shows pictures of the butterflies with their wings opened and closed so if anyone sees anything we identified wrong, please let me know.

Sketching:

Another of my many goals this year is to do more nature drawing.  We started this week by sketching some our beautiful visitors. 

Here’s a peak into our sketch books.   Mine is the one with the monarch, next is Aiden’s, and the one with the pretty orange butterfly is Emily’s.

Our Butterfly House:

To keep the butterflies safe from predators and give them a place to rest we made a butterfly house.  We found the idea for the butterfly house in the book Wildlife Gardening by Martyn Cox.

What We Used:

• A washed carton 
• Scissors
• glue or glue gun
• Bark
• Twigs, leaves and shells
• Twine

What We Did:

1. Cut three narrow slits into one side of the carton.
2. Make a viewing door on the opposite side and place the bark inside to provide a place for the butterflies to perch.
3. Thread twine through the top of the carton.
4. Decorate the carton with twigs, leaves and shells.        
5. Hang you butterfly house in a sheltered place.

         

Our family is looking forward to Fall and the cooler temperatures but we are really going to miss the butterflies!

For more fun with science, check out Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

~Cindy

Weekly Wrap-Up: Butterflies

I can’t believe it’s Friday ~ where did the week go!  Just two more weeks and we will be officially finished for the school year!

We did the normal stuff (math, reading, writing, and spelling) and some fun things ~ learning about and watching caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies.

Here are some of the highlights of our week:

Math – Emily finished her Math-U-See Alpha book!

Art – We made butterflies and flowers using pencil shavings.  I loved the way they turned out and plan on giving them as gifts. 

The kids made Butterfly Pretzels by dipping pretzels in chocolate. (Emily spent the morning at the Children’s Museum and had her face painted ~ just in case you wondered.)

The kids said they were yummy!  (I don’t know because I’m still trying to be good!)

Ever since Emily was 3 years old we have ordered, or if we’re lucky found, caterpillars that we watch transform into butterflies.  We had to order a new butterfly cage this year because a certain little boy ~ who shall go nameless destroyed our other one!  The new butterfly cage came with a certificate to order caterpillars (Painted Ladies).  So we ordered our caterpillars and watched and waited.

On Thursday two of our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis.  This morning it looked like another one ready to come out so we waited and waited some more   

 

for this!

Watching a butterfly come out of its tiny chrysalis, all crumbled, then seeing it flutter it’s wings ~ just never gets old!

We released two of the butterflies.  The rest will be released after Daddy gets home.  We don’t want him to miss out on the fun!

Mommy’s favorite picture ~ not because of the picture, it’s the memory of what the kids were doing.  Aiden is pretending to drive Sissy to the forest.  They were going to capture and relocate a pack of wolves who were causing mischief.  I think someone has been watching too much Go Diego!  I just love their imagination!

I hope everyone else had a good week!  Visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what other homeschoolers have been doing this week .

~Cindy

Preschool Corner ~ Butterflies

Butterflies and more butterflies ~ we had a fun week learning about butterflies and their life cycle.

Letter of The Week

We made a B is Butterfly

and Aiden practiced writing upper case Bs. 

Book and Craft

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

Our craft was a Caterpillar to Butterfly.  I cut an elongated oval from a folded sheet of brown construction paper, leaving the fold intact.  Aiden painted a caterpillar on one side  

the other side was left brown, to represent the chrysalis 

and he painted a butterfly on the inside.

When we finished our craft we munched on some butterfly pretzels.  To make them dip pretzels in chocolate and then prop them up (like a tent) to dry. 

Lapbook

We put together a Butterfly lapbook.

One of Aiden’s favorite lapbook activities was feeding The Very Hungry Caterpillar as we read the book.

Math

Aiden had fun playing with the Butterfly Number Matching File Folder Game I made. 

Click on the image to download. 

I hung the butterflies from the ceiling

and Aiden caught them with a butterfly net.  As he pulled them out of the net he told me the color of the butterfly and how many spots it had on its wings. 

After he caught them he matched them to the flower with the correct number.

Science

We read From Caterpillar to Butterfly and made a Life Cycle of the Butterfly.  Little green pop-poms represent the eggs 

a pom-pom caterpillar

a chrysalis, which the kids made using an Easter Egg.  They covered the egg with Crayola Model Magic, adding a screw hook at the top to hang it, let it dry, and then painted it brown. 

The butterfly is also made out of an Easter Egg.  The kids made sure we adding the proboscis, so he could drink.
We attached everything to a tree branch that I hung on the wall.  (The tree branch didn’t last long, but the kids have enjoyed playing with the Butterfly Life Cycle.)

A couple of weeks ago we purchased a new butterfly cage from Lowes and it came with a certificate to order caterpillars (Painted Ladies).  We order our caterpillars right away!  God showed his perfect timing this week ~ as we were finishing up our butterfly week, two of our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis.   

Butterfly Races

I printed Penny Butterflies for the kids and they competed to see who could balance the butterfly the longest and walk the farthest without dropping the butterfly. 

Aiden’s Pick For The Week:

Playing games on Daddy’s Ipod Touch ~ educational of course! 

For more Preschool ideas and activities visit Preschool Corner!

~Cindy

Pencil Shavings ~ Butterfly and Flowers

When I found this craft on Craft Ideas for All, I knew Emily and I had to try it.  I let Aiden sit out on this craft ~ I thought he would get frustrate picking up the little pieces of pencil shavings and placing them on the paper.

What We Used:

• Pencils in various colors
• Pencil sharpener
• White glue
• Body of butterfly cut out of black construction paper
• Cardstock for background

What We Did:

We used the pencil sharpener to make shavings, using our favorite colored pencils. 

We glued the body of the butterfly to the paper, sketched the basic shape we wanted the wings to be, and glued the  pencil shavings.

When the shavings were dry we added the legs and antenna to the butterfly and the vines and leaves to the flowers.  Here is the finished product! 

~ Emily’s~

~Mommy’s~

I love the way they turned out!  I’m thinking of framing Emily’s and giving it to Grandma on her birthday.

~Cindy

Butterfly Life Cycle Craft

Today we read From Caterpillar to Butterfly

and made a life cycle of the butterfly.

Our caterpillar eggs are tiny pompoms we glued to a leaf

Aiden glued pompoms together to make a caterpillar.

To make the chrysalis, the kids covered a plastic egg with white Crayola Model Magic,  added a hook screw to the top before the clay dried as a way to hang it, and painted it brown.

Our butterfly is also made out of a plastic egg.  Emily cut out the wings and I assembled everything with the hot glue gun (head, antenna, and proboscis ~ we didn’t want him to get thirsty!).

We hung everything on a tree branch that I attached to the wall.

 

~Cindy