Ten For Tuesday: 10 Great Resources For Teaching The Life Cycle Of A Butterfly

It is that time of year again when we are teaching life cycles in my classroom.  I am sure a lot of you are also doing the same.  I thought I would share some great resources for this unit.  You can click on the links or the pictures for more information.
Resource 1:  The Life Cycle of a Butterfly.  This book describes the various stages of a monarch butterfly's life, from egg to pupa to caterpillar to butterfly, as well as its migration and dangers that it faces.

Resource 2.   National Geographic Readers: Caterpillar to Butterfly

Butterflies are all around us. It's hard to believe these majestic insects with impressive wingspans and beautifully colored and patterned wings were once creepy crawly caterpillars. How in the world does this transformation happen? This Level 1 Reader gives kids an up-close look at exactly how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. With bonus information including different types of butterflies and poisonous caterpillars, this reader is one of a kind.

This high-interest, educationally vetted series of beginning readers features the magnificent images of National Geographic, accompanied by texts written by experienced, skilled children's book authors.
The inside back cover of the paperback edition is an interactive feature based upon the book. Level 1 books reinforce the content of the book with a kinesthetic learning activity. In Level 2 books readers complete a Cloze letter, or fun fill-in, with vocabulary words.

Resource 3.   From Caterpillar to Butterfly  A caterpillar comes to school in a jar and the class watches the caterpillar each day as it grows and changes. Soon, it disappears into a hard shell called a chrysalis. Where did it go? This is a perfect beginner's guide to the mystery of metamorphosis.

Named as a NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children, this book explains the life cycle from caterpillar to butterfly with easy-to-follow prose from Deborah Heiligman and warm, colorful illustrations from Bari Weissman.This is a Stage 1 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explains simple science concepts for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Let's-Read-And-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Resource 4:  Explore My World Butterflies  The engaging Explore My World picture books invite kids to take their first big steps toward understanding the world around them and are just the thing for parents and kids to curl up with and read aloud. In Explore My World Butterflies, curious kids ages 3 to 7 will be excited to learn about the magical world of butterflies: their beauty, their importance to plant life, and their incredible metamorphosis and migration.

Resource 5:  Life Cycle of a Butterfly - YouTube 

  

Resource 6:  Butterfly, Butterfly! (a song for kids about the butterfly life cycle)

Resource 7:  Learning Resources Giant Magnetic Butterfly Life Cycle

Resource 8:  Life Cycle of a Butterfly Learning Chart

Resource 9:  Butterfly Garden Gift Set with Live Cup of Caterpillars

Resource 10:  Insect Lore 01010 Original Butterfly Garden with Voucher

Well there you have it....10 great resource for teaching the life cycle of a butterfly.   Tune in next week for a new Ten For Tuesday!  

Game for Letter Recognition, Letter Sounds, Number Recognition, or Sight Word Knowledge

Here is an awesome game that I have played with my students for years. I started out using it mostly for letter recognition but it works so well that I also started using it for learning the letter sounds, number identification, and sight word recognition. At first I start out with uppercase letters and have the letters in order. The student is shown the letter card and must say what the letter is. If they do not know it then I say it, the student repeats, I say it again, the student repeats, and I say it a 3rd time, and the student repeats. I eventually change this to me saying it only once, the student repeats it, and then I say "What's the letter?", the say it, "What's the letter?, and they say it again. If the student gets the letter correct then the card is placed down, if it was incorrect they go through the process above and then the card is placed in the back of the pile. The game continues until all cards are down on the table. This can also be differentiated. Some kids are ready to have the cards in random order so I do this. Some students are only able to handle 5-10 cards until they master those and then we add more. Also with my lower students, I start with 5 cards and if they miss a letter, I put it directly behind the next card instead of in the back of the pile. This game really helps especially with the lower students. You can also train the higher students to lead the activity for the lower students.   Here is a picture of us in action. I actually have a student acting as teacher and leading the game here. 


 

 

Here are links to the cards that I use for letters, numbers, and sight words.  For more information click on the pictures. 

 

 



 

 

Sunday Social: Anything and Everything Spring

I am starting a linky party on Sunday's called Sunday Social.  Here you will find awesome teaching ideas related to the weeks given theme.  This week we are sharing any teaching idea or blog post that is spring related.  Go ahead and share your favorites and check out all of the awesome ideas and posts!

An InLinkz Link-up

Time To Relax With Essential Oils

I don't know about the rest of you, but it was a l...o...n...g week in my kindergarten class. I think my little people have spring fever and it has shown in everything that we tried to do this week. I hate to admit it but I was ever so thankful when 4:00 Friday came around. Now I am sitting at home reflecting on how the week went, what I could have done to make it better, and what I am going to do next week so that we have a better outcome. Last night however, it was time to relax. What do you do to ease the tension of the previous week? One thing that I have come to enjoy is using essential oils and a diffuser. I ordered my diffuser on Amazon but since have seen several different types that I like a little better. Here are a few of them:   You can click on the pictures for more information on each.

  

 I was hesitant to try essential oils at first because I have asthma, however the oils seem to actually be helping me and inhaling the aroma from the oils is so calming and relaxing. I have found a few great "recipes" on Pinterest for relaxation and I thought that I would share them.

This one uses grapefruit, orange, lemon, and bergamot.  You can click on the links to get these awesome essential oils!  

This one looks awesome, and you could enjoy a refreshing mojito drink to go along with it!  This blend uses lime, grapefruit, tangerine, and spearmint.  

If you have not tried essential oils, I would suggest giving them a try.  They have many health benefits, are natural, and they create an enjoyable experience!  

Fabulous Friday Freebies

An InLinkz Link-up

Here Is What We Are Up To With Writing!

I have taught since 1999 and have had many different types of classes during my teaching career.  I work in Flint, Michigan and I am not sure if the lead is having an effect on my students or not but what I do know is this year has been the most difficult to get the student to retain the concepts being taught.  For whatever the reason growth in my class this year is not where I wanted or expected it to be and writing has been no exception.  We are trying so many different ideas and teaching methods with these children and it still seems like a struggle.  This week for writing I again tried another approach and I pulled out a teacher resource that I just got called Ready To Write! Prompt Box Grades K-1 and we have been attempting to write opinion pieces.

The box contains many different prompts for different types of writing.  Here is the prompt that we used today.

I used my overhead projector so that the prompt was visible on the whiteboard and the students could easily see it.




The first few days were really rough but today I started to see some progress.  We started our lesson with a turn and talk.  If you are not familiar with this idea, it is a wonderful way to get students to think about and discuss their ideas during learning time.  I read the focus questions for this lesson "What is your favorite time of day?  What do you like best about it?"  I gave them think time and then told them they would be talking about those two questions with their partners.  I like the Whole Brain teaching method for many things including turn and talk which goes like this:  Teacher:  "Class Oh Class"  Students "Yes Oh Yes"  Teacher:  "Turn To Partner (clap, clap)"  Students:  "OK (clap, clap)"  and then they turn to their partners.  You give the students time to discuss and you walk around and listen to their conversations.  When you are ready for the students to come back together as a class it goes like this:  Teacher:  "Class Oh Class"  Students:  "Yes Oh Yes"  Teacher:  "Turn To Teacher (clap, clap)"  Students:  "OK (clap, clap)"  and then they turn.  It takes some teaching and a lot of practice to get the students to be able to follow these procedures but it really is awesome once they get it! Well after our turn and talk the students were ready to go back to their seats and get to it.  Here are a few of the pieces that we got today:

This student forgot the to after like and the last to above forgot the periods but this is progress.

I love the creativity in this one...She loves the morning because she can play in her garden!  I am excited to keep using this resource as just in the past week I am seeing my students grow as writers and actually enjoy it!

Someone has asked me where to get the cute writing paper.  Click here or on the picture below if you are interested:  Cute Story Paper

Are You Looking For An Awesome Bulletin Board For Spring?

This is my favorite bulletin board that I have created throughout my years of teaching. At my school we have to create what is called an achievement board vs a bulletin board. The difference being we have to put feedback on all work that is posted. We must also include a title, I can statement, and explanation of the given task. This board started as an addition only board, the following year I did a subtraction board and then I used both addition and subtraction on the same board. In order to create this board I worked with a small group of students at a time and they completed the problems on their given flower and then I later typed up the feedback for each flower and added it too the board. This activity also has story problems for the students to solve. The students really enjoyed working on their flowers and seeing their works out in the hallway. The boards each year received a lot of positive feedback from parents, staff, and administration. Here are some pictures of the board:

If you are interested in creating this board, there is not need to recreate the wheel....I have created all the pieces that you will need. Just click on the pictures below to pick yours up today. There are two sets available: addition and subtraction.