Butterfles Unit Study & The Very hungry Caterpillar

Hi!

Spring is officially here in Germany!!!! We had the most beautiful weather this past weekend... somehow you forget about the terrible winter that wasn't so long ago. =)

This week we took a break from Five in a Row studies, and did a unit study on Butterflies. I wanted to do something "spring-y" =) I personally had so much fun with this one!

Easter weekend my KT invited the big JC into heart! So this weeks verse was a good one for us:
Therefore If anyone is in Christ he is a NEW
creation; the old had gone, and the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

We started the week off with reading,

and lapbooking... ( due to time constraints today, i will post all my links and helps at teh bottom)

JT did a little coloring project that was new for him. And he did great! ( addition problems for each color block)

Kt practiced her numbers with some little wooden butterfly decorations I found downtown.. this was so fun for her! and JT made a fun game to help her out!

and what good is a study of butterflies without the Hungry Catapillar??? =) They have been waiting on this one. They LOVE this story, so we added in some fun for their lapbooks and crafts as well! We also have the Hungry Catapillar game... we played it alot!

yes, this is how every paint session seems to go with her. =)

Catapillar (egg carton craft) complete! they took these outside and played for a while with them...

I have started doing a learning center for the school "theme" of the week. It's working wonderfully! I started it for our Five in a Row studies, and will continue to do it for our Unit studies too. We set this up in our living room in the corner, where we see it all the time, the kids can go up to it, and check it out anytime...

like the groovy tape? =) i need to find thumbtacks!!

we concentrated on numbers with Kt this week, since they both know the days of the week really well...

I also forgot to include a close-up photo of a bowl of all teh food from teh story in the center. we happend to have one of each of the foods, so they had fun re-telling the story with those.

these were all GREAT books! these are from my collection, and were very informational. check out their titles online.

I taped the life -cycle of the butterfly to the center table...

and we colored some Hungry caterpillar pages.

Here are the kinder's lapbook!

alot of this was from homeschool share.

I had JT practice copywork for the days of the week...

here was a mini book on the flowers butterflies love:

Kt's letter B book

we finished off our studies with a family trip to the Butterfly House!

we took along the Butter cards in their lapbook. I laminated them and hole punched the corner with some ribbon...

then we went on a Butterfly hunt and for each one they found that matched there card, we put a small sticker on it.. and if they found them all, they got a prize. I also listed inside our litle Butterfly Hunt booklet, FIND: Caterpillar, eggs, one eaten leaf, etc... this kept them busy, and focused.

to my surprise the kids were able to name all of them by heart!!! it's so cute to hear KT say "look mommy! There's the painted lady!" =)

here are two Owl butterflies.

Here is a tip for Dads! if you want to get some butterflies to land on you and impress those little ones... bring along some smashed up oranges, mixed with honey.. and let it sit in a ziplock bag in the sun on your way there... =) Thanks honey!

look closely, how many caterpillars do you see?

check out these TINY eggs!! they were the size of a pin head.

Everytime we go on an outing, I always like to make them lunches with cute brown paper saks.. and put a little goodie in there along with their lunch. It saves us money on lunches, and they really look forward to them. So the night before I started cutting out butteflies... to paste on the bag... can you guess which ones are mine and which are Daddy's??? Mine looks like a FISH!!! =) sooo Funny! I just couldn't do it! Daddy is so HIRED to teach ART class!

This time, I filled it with snacks, drink and some butterfly stickers....

Becuase for our study, it just wouldn't be right to not have ......

This was a hit!

They had to try at least one bite of everything.. even if it was new, or they normally don't eat it. =) after all... that was alot of work for mama!! not in the picture- was the chocolate cake, and the lettuce ( in teh fridge) I did make a mini cherry pie, with the mini crusts, vanilla pudding and a dab of cherry filling...

The rest of our day was so much fun. This is our Favorite place to go in the local area. Luisen Park has tons of parks, a petting zoo, floral gardens, chinese garden, many differant birds ( including penguins) a Reptile center( an anaconda too.. ), resturants, a boat ride with japanese coy fish in the lake,etc..

yes, my sweet KT does show her attitude here and there...

i love this picture!!!

This was the biggest pig we had ever seen. and apperantly the kids "first" pig they had ever seen ... huh... who knew! Anyways, there he was in the Bauern area... the picture doesn't do this guy any justice... He was huge!

there is a special tree here at the this park. We have been coming here since our son was 2 years old. And when we first saw this tree, it was sooo special to us ( the mommy and daddy of course), and we thought it was the cutest thing. We are a family of pacifiers ( Tassi's for short) and this tree is located down by the boat dock.. ( we are sure this tree contains many tassi's that were left behind on the boats... but to our children we claimed it as the place you take your tassi when it's "time." ) ( it's usually covered completely in pacifiers..)

Well my Son gave up his at 2 1/2 and we weren't able to make it there.. so he threw it away... Then my daughter... now 3 about to be 4 has always been told about this special tree since she was little... and when it's time... we are going to take it there..

Well several months ago we "lost it" and being that it was winter, we couldn't take her to the tree anyways, so she was able to deal with the loss pretty well...

This past week she found one... and boy was that NOT fun. And so we told her we could take it to the Tassi Tree now that we found it and she was to big for it now... She wouldn't hear of it...=) So, it is now packed away for memories... and while we were on our litle day trip, We all went to look at the Tassi tree.. and even though we didn't hang one of our own... It still held a special place in our hearts... a symbol of moving on from babyhood to growing up...

Afterall that's one of the FIRST hardest things our little ones ever had to do.

"sniffle" This probably meant more to mama than anyone! =)

Okay, onto a differant topic, my eyes are dry now...

Mama found some JUNK down the street this week! yeah!!!!

you might be thinking..yep, that's junk alright... what on earth are you goign to do with it? Check the blog next week for it's new spot in my school room. =)

while daddy and mama were loading up the car, look at my two yahoos: (diane you will love this)

and check in next week for a new addtion to our Imagination Station. Remember that post office I wanted to build back in February??? =) it's done!

And here, a good practical Math lesson...

counting the $$$ from our jar!!!

We are heading to Paris Disney Wednesday for Kt's 4th Birthday! And through our yearly savings jar.. we had exactly enough for 4 tickets! Praise God! =)

Pssst: one more new thing for school i am SO excited to share:

I have been wanting one of these forever to keep our seasonal books on in our reading area in the living room. Someone locally was selling it for $5! It said it was already sold. So i wrote and offered $25 if the dealer didn't show to pick me! ....=)






Along with our studies this week, we watched the Monarch trip to mexico on Youtube. And the whole lifecycle on youtube,
and here are some links to the things we used for our studies as well.. I normally put them in the right spots on the post, but it's midnight.. and i need to go to sleep. =)

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/orange/SL-37.pdf - life cycle
http://www.coloringcastle.com/pdfs/misc/butterfly.pdf coloring page butterfly
http://www.abcteach.com/free/g/game_caterpillarcounting_bw.pdf catapillar counting game
http://www.lapbooklessons.com/files/LapbookingFIles/AlphaBugs/Butterfly/LapbookBugsButterflyVerse.pdf bible verse
http://www.preschoolpost.com/MayButterflies.html lessons
http://www.abcteach.com/free/members/15791.pdf butterfly word search
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54478/butterfly/cover.pdf lapbook cover
http://www.kidzone.ws/imageschanged/kindergarten/ib-book-b.gif itsy B book
http://www.abcteach.com/free/m/mazebug3.pdf butterlfy maze




Have a wonderful week!!!