Metamorphosis for Preschoolers: Egg

A butterfly emerged overnight!

All day long, my girl has stared into the butterfly habitat whispering encouragements as the butterflies slowly move their wings.  It's adorable.

I would have never thought to buy a butterfly habitat and all that goes into it if we were not having an amazing unit from our Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum.

It was the perfect day to start our Metamorphosis Week with our Bees and Butterflies unit.

Although teaching with my 16 month rambunctious sidekick  proves quite challenging, today was a day when all things clicked and everyone had a part in the learning.

Community Challenge

The Community Challenge was to create a classroom leaf using the fingerprints of all the kids in the room on a leaf using our color for the month- WHITE.  It's only the 3 of us, so instead I gave Sister and Brother each a leaf (she cut hers) and using white paint she placed 15 white fingerprints on her leaf.  15 is one of our numbers of the month by the way.  

Brother used a white crayon to make marks on his leaf.

Literacy: Open Your Egg

 Yesterday was Easter, and boy did my boy have a blast finding our Resurrection eggs around the house.  I knew he could help Sister with this MGT literacy game.

We discussed how butterflies lay eggs on leaves, and MGT sent 6 plastic eggs.  I wrote the letters Kk, Xx, and Mm on scrap paper and placed each one in each egg.  I then placed the eggs on the floor for Brother to find and bring to his Sister.  She would then open the egg and write the letter on the giant leaf MGT sent us.  This worked out great!

Math: Hidden Eggs

MGT sent us white foam ovals and 3 sized leaves: small, medium, and large.

I had to cut some of the ovals into smaller ovals since they were all the same size, but this was such a great sorting game and Brother got to play too.  I hid all the "eggs" in the sensory bin of beans.  Brother absolutely loved rubbing his hands in this stuff.  As they searched and found the eggs, Sister then sorted them onto the appropriately labeled leaves.

She finished this activity by counting all the eggs.(19) 

STEAM: Rolling Eggs

MGT suggested an outdoor discovery lesson with balls and baskets.

I had a blue tub of a variety of balls that Sister and Brother practiced putting into different buckets.

We discussed the shape of eggs (ovals), whether eggs roll or bounce, and what would happen if we dropped an egg.  We were supposed to practice rolling, dropping, and bouncing the "eggs" (balls), but instead it turned into a game of throwing, tossing, and swirling balls in baskets.  Either way enjoyment was had and we got some much needed vitamin D from the sunshine.

Sister swings a bucket and Brother has to find one to swing too. :) 

Art: Eggs on a Leaf

After lunch and while Brother napped, I set up our Invitation to Create.

 I loved how her work turned out on this!

MGT sent us some tiny itty-bitty pasta that was the perfect little egg, a leaf shape, and photo.

Avaleigh used her markers to draw the veins on the leaf and then using the glue, she carefully made a blob of glue on her leaf.  Pinching the pasta, she placed it on the blob until it was completely covered.  She did this for 10 different blobs of glue; however, by the time she got to the 4th or 5th blob, she realized she could pour the pasta and that would cover her glue better.  

I loved how this project turned out! 

StoryTime:  A Monarch Butterfly's Life

by John Himmelman

MGT suggested that we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, which is a wonderful book.

However we know it backwards and forwards, and when I saw A Monarch Butterfly's Life in the library, I knew we had to read it. I love how this book shows the life cycle of the butterfly's life including how it migrates from the States to Mexico.  The pictures are fantastic and it has simple sentences with phenomenal word choice. Lots of information packed into this book.

Our day ended with us reading this book, watching an episode of Wild Kratts (Butterflies), and discovering 2 more butterflies had emerged from their chrysalises!

 You can kind of see the 3 of them in the pic below.

Whew!  That was a lot!  But it was so much fun and didn't even seem that long!  Super excited about this week and I can't wait to see what MGT has planned for us as we study the Caterpillar, Chrysalis, and Butterfly stages this week!

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