Butterflies and the Letter B

Kindergarten is well under way, and we have spent our time focusing on classroom expectations and getting to know one another.

We have been finishing up our first science unit on Monarch butterflies, and the students had so much fun learning about them! Unfortunately, we have not been able to find any milkweed plants with eggs on them, so we do not have a little caterpillar to watch this year in our classroom. That hasn't stopped us from bringing the lives of butterflies into our room!

I love spending my time searching for lesson plans on Pinterest. I found an adorable picture of the edible butterfly life cycle that was posted by Tracy from My Little Yellow Room, and I knew that I had to recreate it with my students! I sent it to my cooperating teacher and she surprised me the very next day by bringing in all of the edible supplies in so that I could teach it that morning! I was thrilled!

Here is what we used:

• 1 mini marshmallow for the egg
• 1 sour gummy worm for the caterpillar
• 1 green Tootsie Roll for the chrysalis
• 1 butterfly cracker for the butterfly

I sectioned off the paper plates into four spaces, and told the students that we were going to create the butterfly life cycle. I gave them one food item at a time, and explained what it represented in regards to the life cycle steps. The students LOVED it! They liked when I pulled out a piece of candy and held it up, asking them which part of the cycle it represented; all students were able to answer correctly and confidently, which was a joy to see.

It was so fun to make (and eat) this activity! I loved the hands-on aspect of it, and the students loved being able to eat candy in the morning. (Notice how there's only one piece of candy in each slot. Not a mistake by any means...)

Source

We also continued our science unit into our letter sounds and identification. Our letter of the week was "B" through the LETRS program. We spent time talking about words we know that start with the letter B, and the sound that the letter makes. One of my favorite activities, however, was the butterfly B's that we created together one morning!

Ms. Preston's butterfly B!

This idea came straight from Pinterest, and it originated from crystalandcomp.com. This activity was very easy to do with students, but it needed a lot of prep time before we were able to bring it into the classroom!

To create this craft, you will need:

• Black construction paper
• Rolls of contact paper
• Cut up squares of tissue paper
• Scotch tape

Once we created a template for the butterfly B, it was time to cut them out and get them ready for students. Before students came into the classroom during morning recess, we went around to each table and placed a sticky-side up piece of contact paper to their desks with Scotch tape. After that was completed, we plopped down the black construction paper B templates onto the contact paper, and smoothed it out to make sure it would stay flat.

It was very tricky to keep little fingers off of the sticky contact paper, but once we let them have the pieces of tissue paper, they were so happy to get started! When students left to attend their specials, we rushed around to place the other piece of contact paper down onto the butterflies to seal the tissue paper creations. We spent time cutting them out, and surprised the students by taping them onto the windows as beautiful sun catchers.

I absolutely love being able to bring hands-on activities in the classroom instead of distributing worksheets. There was a lot of learning going on in kindergarten and the students seemed to enjoy every minute of it!