B is for Butterfly: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We learned on Tuesday that an egg hatches a caterpillar, a caterpillar eats and eats until it has enough fat to make a cocoon, after a couple weeks a butterfly works its way out of the cocoon. We continued with that theme learning about the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I was so very excited to teach this unit! So, so fun.

First we watched the ABC mouse video again and practiced the B sound. We also learned about the color blue. Kaylee, Jared, Max, and RJ all wore blue! I showed the kids a color crew video about a silly blue crayon who colored with his friend yellow.

We read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I made a cute caterpillar out of a Parmesan cheese can. The kids fed our caterpillar all the foods the caterpillar ate in the book. Kaylee helped the caterpillar earn some orange wings for all that eating. The kids made caterpillar necklaces...well, tried. It was hard going so Amanda and I made the necklaces for the kids.

Then the kids magically turned into caterpillars as well. They ate through their snack of: 1 apple, two pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, and 5 oranges. Each child wiggled into a cocoon hanging from our tree. While in the cocoon the kids earned some wings and wiggled out to fly away as amazing butterflies.

After the excitement of turning into butterflies the kids ran around with butterfly nets and caught leaves, each other, and lots of air. We tried to play Elefun, the batteries ran out, then the butterflies were caught by boys who put their net over the elephant's trunk. Cheaters!

B is for Butterfly

B is a boisterous letter. It bounces, bobs, and of course is very beautiful. The kids watched the letter B song from ABC Mouse, twice. The kids practiced writing the letter B/b on a paper plate filled with some rice.

We had a special visitor come to preschool on Tuesday. A real butterfly! It died after waiting a week in the butterfly cage, still each child got to touch it's velvet wings, look closely at the curly tongue, and see the fur on it's belly. I read a special book on the Butterfly cycle. The kids made a craft showing the butterfly cycle. The glue was awesome to play with.

The weather was perfectly warm, with a bright sun and no wind. Seven butterfly snacks met the kids in the side yard. We made some fun letter B window suncatchers with contact paper and squares of tissue paper. The most exciting part was donning tissue wings and running around like wild butterflies.