Flutter Flutter Butterfly!

This week we will be doing a lot of butterfly themed activities, along with our other non-themed activities.  Especially exciting since we are starting to see some butterflies around! 

A favorite song/chant...

Lovely pics...can you sense some sarcasm there.  :-P  Sorry. 

These were actually the best ones out of the bunch I snapped quickly to give you an idea of how I did it.

I do not know where I got the clip art from so will pass on sharing this document.  It's relatively easy to make though!  I used stickers on the one side of the cards and the chant on the other side.  We chant the alphabet part and then flip the card over.

Alphabet Butterfly Rap

ABCDE

I found a butterfly on me!

FGHIJ

She started out in a very small way.

KLMNO

An egg smaller than my toe!

PQRST

Next a caterpillar she would be.

UVWXY

In a chrysalis is where she'd lie.

Z

That's how my butterfly came to be!

Author Unknown 

If you know who the author of this chant is please make a comment so I can give credit where it is due.  Thanks!

With the older child we spent a lot of time with this thought of butterflies being symmetrical.  She really caught on this year!  Often I do introduce the idea of symmetry with butterflies but I don't often see children exploring with that concept during their play and activities.  But I did today!

We started off by checking out some butterflies in books,

and on some window clings (great toddler fine motor!).

Then we moved to our butterflies made out of foam shapes (which we had sorted earlier in the morning...love the conversation between the two kiddos about the shapes as they were sorting!)

Foamie Butterflies

Simply tape a basic butterfly pattern to the wall (this one was Mailbox Preschool, April/May 2002), and then tape contact paper over top, sticky side out.  This is a lovely activity for both toddlers and preschoolers and I expect my school-age boys will be at it this afternoon.

After K. was ready to move on we moved to a dry erase board where I demonstrated filling the whole board with a simple butterfly shape.  This "filling the page" is a bit more of a struggle for toddlers/preschoolers, thus I demonstrate on a larger surface when I'd like to see the larger drawings.  She caught on and so we erased mine and she drew her's and we took turn adding shapes and lines on both sides of the butterfly (somewhat symmetrical!).  Then she moved on to a large piece of white construction paper and did the same thing.

Water Color Resist Butterfly

She really took the time to add a lot of color to her work today.  I'm pretty sure this is because of our daily journals that we've been doing since we came back from Spring Break.  (Typical of her would be all one color unless I encouraged otherwise.)  For her journals, she brainstorms, draws, colors (at least 5), labels (at least 3).  This visual can be found on the Journals: Draw and Label post, feel free to use it with your own kiddos. We'll do the same this week and then I think we'll move onto adding a sentence.  She LOVES the labeling!

Oil pastels are awesome to use with toddlers.  So much more rewarding than crayons!  Small enough that they don't break easy, small enough to encourage proper hand grip, easy to mark and bold colors! 

Seriated Heart Butterfly

A lovely paper craft to work on tracing a pattern, scissor skills and reinforce that thought of symmetry.  Today, we also worked with the concept of a hamburger and a hot dog fold.  I'll have to admit that I couldn't figure out what they were talking about in my son's kindergarten class.  They used those terms often...hamburger and hot dog folds.  (Granted, I was only hearing the words not seeing the demonstration.) LOL   One day I was folding a piece of paper and it clicked!  Been using those terms since then.  So a hamburger fold is bottom to top fold of a piece of portrait orientated paper and a hot dog fold is bottom to top of a piece of landscape orientated paper.   Picture a hamburger bun vs. a hot dog bun.

Hearts pattern to fit on a 9x12 piece of construction paper can be download here.  Print and cut out of cardstock or trace and cut from a file folder or cereal box cardboard to make tracers for the children.

Anyway, she chose 4 colors for her wings.  Folded each paper hamburger style, chose a heart to trace (supporting with left hand, tracing with right), and then cut out starting at the fold so that she ended up with two exact heart cut outs.  Then she glue them with points touching, largest to smallest.  Later added a body and attenae and got a relatively symmetrical butterfly.

Coffee Filter Butterflies

An oldie but a good one!

I normally always provide eye droppers with coffee filter work but today I chose to provide paint brushes.  Well, after the first coffee filter K. asked for the eye droppers.  :-)  The children used them both interchangeably.  We are actually going to do this again tomorrow but with washable markers and only water with paintbrush. Color mixing and fine motor.

A few pics from today.  It's going to be a busy week!  Hope it stays as beautiful as it was today!  We went outside and was out there almost an hour.  K. said to me as we came in..."But we only stayed out for 10 minutes."  :-D  Yes, that beautiful.  And part of it could have been that Donnie got the teeter totter and the roller coaster out over the weekend.  They played with those for quite awhile before getting to their normal routine activities.  They are so funny... they do the exact same things in the exact order almost everyday outside.  Always throws them for a loop when I slip something "new" in there.   Have a lovely week!