Butterfly Unit Study

We've been planning to study butterflies for so long, but things just kept coming up. In August, I even got all the books I needed from the library. Then something happened and my order for caterpillars was lost. Finally we received our caterpillars and got to do the study.

Planning Resources:
Ordered caterpillars from Insect Lore
Homeschool Share butterfly lapbook
Homeschool Share The Very Hungry Caterpillar unit
Enchanted Learning

We started by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other caterpillar books.
Here are the kids telling and acting out the story.



I made these a few years ago from these templates.



Then we read lots of butterfly books. Some of them were: Isabel's House of Butterflies, Are You a Butterfly?, The Butterfly Alphabet, Butterfly and the Bog Beast (Magic School Bus), and Waiting for Wings.


Butterfly Snack

The last caterpillar was making a chrysalis before I realized it so I didn't get any pictures of them before.

Still in the container they came in

5 days later; they've been moved into the butterfly habitat


Notebook Pages:

On the left: questions to answer about caterpillars, life cycle of a butterfly, and a picture of a butterfly they had to label.
On the right: predators, defenses, what butterflies eat, put the life cycle in order, and butterfly observation (I had them draw pictures to show what our caterpillars looked like from the time we got them until they became butterflies).


Butterfly Mosaics:

Egg Carton Caterpillars:

I got each of the kids one of these Butterfly Stained Glass coloring books.


I punched a hole in them, put them through a string, and hung them across the window to catch the sunlight.




We had a visitor on our front door last week.

The girls and their friend caught it and put it in a wagon to push around in the backyard for a while. They learned a lesson about predators when they tried to put a butterfly in with it. The praying mantis gobbled up the poor butterfly.

Family Day

My husband's work had family day yesterday. There were games, inflatables, a plant tour, and food. The food included all you could eat cotton candy and snowcones, which made my kids very happy.

Here they're inside the plant. They make fabric for cars. We got to see how the whole process from start to finish works.

Molly said she didn't understand why anyone would want to only use one hand because it's hard.

Caleigh was really concentrating and stayed on for a long time.

Colin said the bull was his favorite part.



The girls with just some of their winnings.



Most of the stuff they won



Our Week: Byzantine Empire, Astronomy, & Butterflies

History
The Byzantine Empire was our subject for history. We read about Justinian and Theodora. One of the things we read about was how Justinian had to come up with a set of laws for everyone to follow. I asked the kids what laws they thought would be good. Caleigh: no fighting; Molly: don't leave the oven on; Colin: no more than an hour of school a day allowed.
We also learned about mosaics and decided to try some of our own. In this book we looked at about making mosaics, one of the examples used M&Ms on cookies. We made cakes instead so the kids would have a little more space to make their mosaics out of M&Ms.

Molly's: 

She says this is supposed to be me. Yellow hair, green eyes, brown eyebrows, yellow nose, red lips, and the bottom is a neck she says.



Colin's:  

On the bottom is a hockey player (red body, brown head) with a hockey stick.  The guy on the top (green body, yellow head) is the goalie.



 Caleigh's: 

In the middle is a rainbow. The blue is the sky. Yellow on the top right is the sun.


We also made mosaics with paper squares. Colin is still working on his and they all made butterflies so I'll include pictures in my butterfly unit study post.

Unit Studies
I guess this could actually go under science. We finally got our caterpillars a couple weeks ago so we spent some time this week learning more about butterflies. I'll make a separate post about it soon.

Last week our unit study was based on Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. To go along with that we read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We read tons of books each day, but I always have trouble fitting chapter books in so we didn't finish it until today. We're watching the movie tonight and the kids had these cars for dinner.

To make the cars: I wrapped hotdogs in cresent rolls and baked them. Then I cut 2 slits in the top, one for the pickle steering wheel and the other for the string cheese driver. I put a little mustard on a toothpick to make the face. Then we used mini Oreos for the tires.

Science

We started Exploring Creation With Astronomy this week. Some of the things we learned about: what is astronomy, gravity, Copernicus, Galileo, and the order of the planets.
We did some mini books that we will be adding to our notebook as soon as I figure out how much space I want to use for our astronomy study. This week's mini books were a comparison of the Ptolemy model and the Copernicus model of the solar system, description of gravity, and a mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets.


Molly getting ready to drop balls to demonstrate gravity.



Everything Else
We started meeting with a small group to allow the kids to have a chance to do oral presentations. We had our first meeting on Monday. The kids brought their favorite board game and told everyone why they liked it and how it's played. Then the kids took turns playing the games.

Colin had his weekly First Lego League meeting on Tuesday. The boys came up with an idea for their presentation and started working on the details. We also met at a park on Wednesday with the First Lego kids so they could just play. They're always asking for some time to just play with each other without working on the robot or their project.
On Thursday, Colin had his second roller hockey practice and he was just as excited as the first time.

Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car

This week we did our first Five in a Row book of the year. I try to match them to what we're studying in history or science if possible. We studied the Celts and Britain for history. I chose Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car because the setting is England.

We usually at least discuss most of the lessons in the Five in a Row manual. Then we do more with a few of them.

Geography: Found England on map and colored flag
Social Studies: Discussed what social means and how Mr. Gumpy was social; discussed how the riders had to cooperate with each other
Language Arts: time sequence, onomatopoeia, details
Math: dozen, multiplying by 12

Caleigh had already made this egg carton car. I used it because it had 12 spaces, one for each rider. The kids went through their toys to find Mr. Gumpy, a boy, a girl, and each of the animals that rode.

Science: clouds, water cycle, friction



They tried sliding different objects to see which has most friction.


Art: crosshatching, symbolism, texture, showing action



Drawings showing mud being thrown
Top left: Colin-foot stomping mud
Top right: Molly- mud bomb exploding
Bottom: Caleigh- in the middle there is a dog digging and throwing mud



Caleigh's Notebook Pages



Wooden cars Colin put together


Books we read:
Inside Outside Book of London
England: Enchantment of the World
Mr. Gumpy's Outing
What's a Pair? What's a Dozen?
Duck in the Truck
How Do You Count a Dozen Ducklings?
A Dozen Ducklings Lost and Found
The Little Red Hen
The Water Cycle
The Cloud Book
This is Rain
Clouds
Magic School Bus Wet All Over
What is Friction?
Experiments with Friction
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Adding in a picture of the cars we made so it will be with this post in case someone is looking for specific ideas of Mr. Gumpy later on.

Our Week: Celts, Mr. Gumpy, & Hockey

This week hasn't been the easiest for getting our school work done. On Monday and Tuesday, we had a toddler staying with us while her mom was in the hospital having a baby. Needless to say, we didn't get to all the things I had planned for those days. Babysitting is apparently hard work. Poor Molly was so worn out from being kept up late and woken up early that this is how I found her at 5:00 on Tuesday evening after the little girl left.

I was hoping we could jump back in on Wednesday and have a really productive day. One of the kids was having a really bad day though. She broke down crying 3 times during school. The first time she didn't like starting school with grammar, the second time she didn't want to name action verbs, and finally she didn't want to read a word problem in math. She decided on her own that she needed to go lay down in her room for a while when everyone else had lunch. After a little break, she did better with the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, Thursday wasn't the best day either. Lots of whining, tattling, pestering, and fighting with all the kids. And a few more tears from my 7 year old. This time the idea of starting multiplication had her in a panic. She always worries about new things and likes to know how to do everything right away. She convinces herself it's too hard, but she did just fine with it once she calmed down.

I'm very glad we've made it to Friday. I think we all need a couple days off. I'm hoping everything goes better next week and maybe the sun will return, which should improve everyone's mood.

The Three Rs
Nothing too exciting to report here. Everyone is progressing along with their lessons. Molly has been working on the websites, Reading Eggs and Studydog, for her phonics. She's enjoying both of them. Some of the things are easy for her, but the repetition seems to be helping her remember some of the things she was having trouble with before.

Five in a Row
Our FIAR book this week was Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. We did some fun lessons and read many books to go along with it. I'll be posting more about this soon.

History
We learned about the Celts and the story of Beowulf. We also read about Christianity coming to Britain, monks, and how they made books. Besides reading, the map work and a coloring page of Beowulf were the only things we got to for history this week.

Science
Our science this week went along with our FIAR book. We learned about clouds, the water cycle, and friction.


Friction Experiment

Art
Art also went along with our FIAR book. We discussed crosshatching that was used in the book and they tried some. We also looked at how action was shown. They drew an example by having something in their drawing throwing mud. We also worked with using texture in drawings and discussed symbolism. They each drew their own car using Draw Write Now.

Extra Stuff
On Tuesday, Colin had his First Lego League meeting. They chose their t-shirt design and the solution to their problem. They also completed their first mission, which was exciting for all of us.

Colin started roller hockey on Thursday. He's been talking about playing hockey for a while, but needed ice skating lessons first. We had planned to hold off on that until January. Then my hubby saw a sign for roller hockey so we thought we'd let him try that first.

Today we all went to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game.



They had inflatables for the kids before the game.



 

Molly said this was the best part.





Colin waiting for the game to start. He was very happy that the Hurricanes won.