Bug Week: Day 2 of Butterflies

Here we are of day two of bugs. My girls really like butterflies so we had another day of fun learning about butterflies!

Today's activities were focused on how butterflies eat but because today is April Fools Day we started off reading Arthur's April Fools. Around here it's a fun day mostly because it's Grandpa's birthday but the girls are getting old enough to try to start learning about the fun side of April Fools too. This book was okay, but I used it mainly as a topic for discussion of how our pranks or tricks need to be fun for everyone, especially the person you're pranking. We talked about how it's important to do this while not disrespecting the person or making them feel embarrassed in any way. We just want jokes that get a little laugh from everyone. So, we used this book as a way to talk about how we could have done things differently. We mentioned how Binky Barnes was trying to belittle and bully people and that should never be our intention and how Arthur maybe shouldn't have tricked and embarrassed Binky on the stage in front of everyone but how later he does a more private prank so he would get a good innocent laugh all by himself, at the end of the book. (Another disclaimer on the book is that I taped a page together to skip Arthur's nightmare. Not pictures I want my daughter seeing, but you don't even notice anything in the story, it just skips to the next day.) I'd love to hear if you have any good books on April Fools Day that you read. 

After our book we did a simple bug stamping art project. I found these bugs at Hobby Lobby but here are some similar ones on Amazon if you're looking. The girls had to match the stamps in the right colors of paint we had. The ladybug was red, grasshopper green, bee was yellow...etc. They did really good. 

Lastly, our focus for the day was learning about how butterflies eat. We talked about how they find flowers and then when they land on the flower they unroll their really long tongue called a proboscis. Then they put their tongue way deep down in the middle of the flower and suck up the sweet nectar. 

I reinforced this by having my girls pretend to be butterflies and drink nectar from a flower. I had them color a card stock flower shape, making sure to be a nice yellow center, sweet with nectar to drink. Then I put a small hole in the middle. The girls and I love to make passion tea lemonade, so we made some to be our nectar. Then the girls put the straws in their mouths and had to poke it into the middle of the flower to sip some sweet nectar. This was really fun for my older one to actually keep the 'tongue' in her mouth and move it up and down for a drink. But my littlest one still enjoy sipping up the nectar from the straw. 

If you want to add a bit more fun for older ones and don't care about germs in a family you can try to set up a few flowers outside and have the butterflies fly around from flower to flower sipping the nectar. We have all been fighting a little nose congestion lately so I didn't want to pass germs around right now but this would have been so much fun. 

Well, I hope your kids enjoy learning about how butterflies eat. If you missed my last post on butterflies you can check out our other butterfly activities here. Also, keep a look out for some more buggy adventures coming up!

God Bless you and all your critters!

Heather Joy

Bug Week: Day 1, Butterflies!

This week since it's officially Spring we are having a little bit of fun and putting off some of our regular lesson plans to learn about bugs.  The joys of 'homeschooling' your little ones is just to get them in the habit of learning.  My eldest requests to do school every day and while I try to give her what she wants I know she is still young so we just do 'school' more as a fun learning time. No pressure, no rush, if she wants to be done we're done, lots of focus on nature and God's creation and crafts.

Every kid loves to learn about bugs.  Creepy things that make you both cringe with fear sometimes also brings a very good amount of curiosity.  And that's exactly what we're trying to harness in teaching at home: feeding ones curiosity with knowledge.  "You want to know why a bee likes flowers, let's find out." Exploring together God's creation is one of my greatest joys.

We recently found a Green Anoli lizard in our front yard and he has become our new pet.  It has also provided us a great opportunity to learn about lizards. What do they eat? Why is this lizard's nickname the American Chameleon? etc. Its' been a lot of fun learning with my girls and we find out more about our pet lizard Argh. Umm...yes, that's our lizards name: Argh! We couldn't decide on a name but everytime our youngest came up to the lizard she would growl that way so we just decided to name him Argh. (Although, in writing it is sounds more like a pirate than a growl, ha!)

So, back to bugs. Today we learned about butterflies. We read Angelina and the Butterfly, which is a cute story if your Angelina fans, which we are!  Angelina catches a hurt butterfly and through a series of events learns that butterflies need to be free to be happy.  It's a cute read.

We also made some Scratch Butterfly Ornaments that the girls absolutely loved! They are black paper ornaments in the shape of a butterfly and you simply use a wooden dowel to scratch off the black to reveal a wonderful design underneath.  We tried to focus on how butterflies are symmetrical and what they means. Although the girls just wanted to scratch their entire butterfly to see the pretty colors, so weren't too focused on that. I love these scratch ornaments and we do them each Spring (they come with like two dozen!).  I like them mostly because they are so easy for even my little one and all the kids love it.  Kara says, "It's like magic."

After our ornaments we make some Butterfly Bites for a snack.
All you need is:
-Celery
-Peanut Butter (or cheese spread)
-Pretzels
-Raisins

Put it together like ants on a log except add the pretzels as wings.  Super easy and lots of fun.

Lastly, I had saved a fun book about bugs for the end.  It's called One to Ten...and Back Again- An Amazing Pull-The-Ribbon Book. I got this book when I used to teach and we had a scholastic book fair.  It was so cool I just had to have it. I hadn't seen anything like it, nor have I since then.  It's a book about a single bee who finds a perfect flower to rest on, when with each page turn different bugs keep being added to his resting spot. Each page turn a ribbon pulls through and shows some bugs on it, then when you get to the end you flip the book upside down and watch as each page turn the ribbons disappear as you count back down to the single bee. The girls love reading this book and watching me slowly open the page so they can see the ribbon being pulled open. I can't believe it's available for so cheap now on Amazon. If you haven't seen it check it out here. It's totally a keeper for the home library!

Well, thanks for following our first day of bug adventures and I hope you will look back to see what other bugs we'll explore!

God Bless and Happy Bug Exploring!

Heather Joy