We've been watching our caterpillars change into butterflies during the past few weeks in Miss Jeana's and Miss Kazia's classroom. So Miss Carrie brought out a book that talks about caterpillars to butterflies titled From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and Bari Weissman.
It even had a preschool class who noticed during snack time that the butterfly was emerging from the chrysalis. (Note from Miss Carrie: Once a child has experienced an activity, reading a book about that activity is often more engaging because the child has real word experience from which to draw. )
Then Miss Carrie showed video clips of caterpillars and butterflies (Video Touch-Bugs is the name of the app). We watched different kinds of caterpillars. Some caterpillars had patterns (yellow-black-yellow-black). Some had spikes or fuzz. One caterpillar had a red head with black spots that looked like a lot of eyes. We saw one caterpillar molt it's skin to form a chrysalis. Then a butterfly emerged from the chrysalis. We watched the wings that were shriveled up and wet, straighten out and dry. Then we watched video clips of butterflies. Some were orange and black. Some had circles on their wings that looked like eyes. We watched a butterfly's proboscis curl up and straighten out. They use the proboscis like a straw to drink nectar out of the flowers. We watched a butterfly drink nectar and wondered why their wings kept moving so fast.
Last, Miss Carrie brought out scarves and we could pretend to be butterflies. We talked about what colors we chose for our wings and if they were the same or different. We talked about moving our wings fast or slow. Some friends pretended to drink nectar. After large group, during Outside Time, our teachers released some of the butterflies that we watched in class.
DO THIS AT HOME: Get outside and go on a butterfly hunt. Use your looking eyes (we use the term "looking eyes" in class all the time so the children are familiar with this) and find some butterflies in your yard, at the park, or on a walk. Talk about the colors, the size, and fast or slow. If you can, take a picture of the butterflies you find and talk about them with other family members at home.
Vocabulary And Basic Concepts: same/different, disappear/ed, experiment, because What/Where/Who/Why questions, progressive -ing, past tense -ed, labeling colors.
Miss Carrie she noticed that a lot of our friends were mixing colors last week. Some of them mixed paint and some of them mixed colored water. When they mixed red and yellow, it made orange. When they mixed blue and yellow, it made green. When they mixed red and blue, it made purple. Miss Carrie wondered what would happen if we drew with lots of different colors on paper, and then put a color filter on top of the drawings, what would happen? Would the colors we drew with look the same or different, or would the color disappear? Hmmm.
So we drew pictures on a big piece of paper. We wrote our names. Then Miss Carrie passed out color filters in different shapes. We put them on top of our drawings. Guess what happened?
Colors changed! Colors disappeared! We had so much fun looking at the different results of our experiment.
DO THIS AT HOME: Mix paint, mix colored water, or do artwork and look at it through different filters (sunglasses, 3-d glasses will work). Talk about experiment and guess what will happen. Emphasize same and different.
This week, Miss Carrie brought out her big blocks (cardboard boxes covered in colorful duct tape) and her scarves. She wondered what we could make with blocks and scarves. We noticed that when we each built a separate tower, the towers were short. But when we cooperated together, the towers were so tall. We had to communicate with each other on what to do, where to put blocks, and who was going to build or wreck it. If we wanted to wreck it, we had to ask our friends. They could say yes or no.
Also, in Miss Kazia's classroom, we found a rainbow! Funny, it didn't appear again the next day. Hmmm.....
Look! We found a rainbow! Where did that come from?
DO THIS AT HOME: find some familiar and unfamiliar building materials. You can choose to be indoors or outdoors. Talk about cooperation, making things taller, and see what happens. As always, follow your child's lead.
