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Our study of
butterflies began for many of my students when they were in
second grade. So we decided to extend our study this year. I
ordered butterflies and they arrived right before Memorial Day.
We viewed videos about butterflies and their life cycle, read
books, visited various internet websites such as enchanted
learning and
Pics4Learning (copyright free pictures for students to use
in their projects) and the resources listed on
this project's website.
While we
were learning more about butterflies, all of our caterpillars
died. We were so disappointed, but it didn�t stop us. We looked
in our school garden, at home, everywhere we could think of for
caterpillars. We found butterfly eggs, and caterpillars to
raise. We then had to find food to keep them alive. Everyone
worked together to keep our caterpillars alive.
We
received an overnight shipment of new caterpillars from a place
in our state. We were so excited to see these caterpillars. We
kept a watchful eye on them. We worried when they didn�t move.
Then we watched them grow and grow! Finally each one made their
chrysalis and we watched and waited. We waited for one of them
to emerge.
Finally it
was the last day of school and nothing happened. About a half
hour after we arrived we discovered that one of the butterflies
was about to emerge. Before we went home for the summer all five
of our butterflies had emerged. It was amazing! We had five
minutes until we were dismissed when we saw that the butterflies
were moving their wings. We couldn�t believe it. What a
wonderful way to end our school year.
The
projects the students made were equally amazing. Here is a
sampling of our projects.
Ellie
designed a poster.
Taylor,
Laura, Jenny and HeeRo performed a skit and made it into a
movie.
Click
HERE to download our QuickTime
Movie
Liam
designed a triarama about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Elliot
designed a game.
Katie made
a poster.
Patrick
and Steve made a slideshow in Kid Pix.
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