B is for Butterfly Preschool Unit

We have had an amazing time studying butterflies this last month. It has been a perfect at-home preschool unit for my children ages 2, 3, and 5.

Learning Letters and Numbers

If you are working on your ABC's a great resource for the B is for Butterfly unit are these free B is for Butterfly printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. These include tracing, counting, and other butterfly-themed activities

Books to Read

Below are a few books we read as we studied butterflies!

National Geographic Readers: Caterpillar to Butterfly
This is a good non-fiction easy reader about butterflies. It is short enough for young kids to listen to or read on their own but still full of interesting facts.

Caterpillar Spring, Butterfly Summer
This fun pop-up book is great for the youngest kids. My two-year-old loved it, but even my five-year-old thought it was a fun book.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This is a classic that my kids love. However, if you are being scientifically accurate, you should note that butterflies do not form cocoons--the correct term for a butterfly is a chyrsalis. I had to make this correction with my kids but it led to a good discussion about the differences between cocoons and chyrsalises as well as the differences between butterflies and moths (which do form cocoons).

Butterfly Garden (Robin Hill School)
This was an easy reader that my oldest son could read independently. Yet it was also enjoyable for all of my children because it described a process of growing butterflies in a classroom, very similar to what we did in our own home.

Butterfly Tree
This showed the wonder of a little girl who saw a group of migrating Monarch butterflies. It was very poetic with beautiful illustrations.

Hands-on Activity

We grew our own butterflies. This was an amazing experience. All of my children loved checking on our caterpillars every day and watching them grow. They were so excited and filled with wonder, seeing the things that they had read about in our books happen in front of their eyes. As a mom, I was just as excited to watch the changes.  You can buy your own Insect Lore Butterfly Garden to grow butterflies at home. (Note: The kit comes with an empty butterfly pavilion and a certificate for you to mail in to receive 5 live caterpillars. There is an additional $5 shipping charge when you redeem your certificate for the caterpillars. The experience of growing your own butterflies is well worth it!)

At the end, we had a party with friends to celebrate butterflies and release them. The butterflies were docile enough for my older kids to hold on their fingers. I used a q-tip dipped in sugar water to help my two-year-old pick up a butterfly before releasing it.

Pretend Play

It is fun to act out the stages of a butterfly's life. Pretend to be a caterpillar and wiggle around on the floor. Curl up into a pretend chrysalis and then emerge as a butterfly and pretend to fly around. You can make your own butterfly wings if you want to add to the fun. You could even pretend to with your proboscis (a regular drinking straw would be a perfect proboscis), just as we did in our B is for Bee unit last year.

Snacks

When our butterflies were ready to release, we invited a few friends over to help us release them. I made butterfly shaped sugar cookies (my favorite sugar cookie recipe is here), and the kids each decorated their own cookie.

For a slightly healthier butterfly-themed snack, we also had colored goldfish in plastic baggies that were clipped together in the middle. You could also do this with colored cereal or fruit.

I also love this edible butterfly life cycle.

Crafts

Probably the most common butterfly craft you might have seen is the tissue paper butterfly. We have done several variations of this butterfly craft. For a basic butterfly, use tissue paper as the wings, and then cinch up the center and create a butterfly body with a chenille stem.

For my daughter's butterfly above, we left a small loop at the bottom of the butterfly's body so she could wear it like a ring. My sons decorated coffee filters instead of tissue paper and then cinched them up.

You could also use a clothespin instead of a chenille steam to hold the butterfly's body together.

Another fun craft and pretend play prop is butterfly wings. You can use regular cardstock, butcher paper, or even old file folders.

Above is my son with his butterfly wings made from an old file folder that he created at a class at our local nature center. As part of this craft, the teacher also talked about symmetry and encouraged all of the kids to make their designs symmetrical.

Song

My kids enjoyed dancing around to this song based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Note that it does relate the incorrect term "cocoon" instead of "chrysalis" just as the book does, but it is still a lot of fun.

The kids sang to this song at our local library and the librarian prepared foam butterflies on sticks for each of the kids to wave around as they listened to the song.

Field Trips

It just so happened that when we were studying butterflies, there were several free and fun community programs that went along with our theme. We went to a butterfly program at our local library and a class about butterflies at our local nature center.

We also went to the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum near us. There were many amazingly beautiful butterflies to see up close!

Our study of butterflies was definitely one of our favorite units we have done. For more of our A to Z lesson plans, you can visit our Lesson Plans page here!

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I is for Icecream

I is for ice cream was a very fun lesson and perfect for our upcoming SUMMERTIME. Some of the highlights were graphing our favorite ice cream flavors, making an ice cream cone craft out of our handprints (I let them choose their 3 favorite "flavors"), and making homemade ice cream. I never knew how easy it was to make homemade ice cream. Here's the recipe if you want to try it out:

Homemade ice cream
Large zip lock bag
Small zip lock bag
3 cups of ice
6 tbsp of salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 Tsp Vanilla
Add milk sugar and vanilla together in the small zip lock bag. Zip TIGHT and place larger zip lock bag with the ice and salt around it.
SHAKE.....SHAKE.......SHAKE for 5-10 minutes

I had the kids go out and jump on the tramp for the shaking and it worked perfectly, maybe a little too well. They had to let them thaw out a little! But the ice cream was actually quite good and incredibly easy. One piece of advice if you try this out... when you take the small ice cream baggie out of the bigger one, rinse it off before opening it so the salt doesn't mix in. Have fun!

We found some cute books about Ice Cream:
The Ice Cream King
Wemberly's Ice-Cream Star
 Should I Share My Ice Cream? (An Elephant and Piggie Book)
 I Scream! Ice Cream!: A Book of Wordles
 Ice Cream: Including Great Moments in Ice Cream History

Traced the Letter I
(click here for a printable)!

And we did a fun flannel board rhyme with my ice cream cones show above.  I had 5 colorful ice cream scoops to help show the story.
Five little ice cream cones standing in a row,
each has a scoop and an ice cream cone,
out came the sun and it shown all day,
one little ice cream cone melted away

Four little ice cream cones...
Three little ice cream cones...
Two little ice cream cones...
One little ice cream cone...

A fun math/reading activity: make ice cream cones with the colors and numbers on them.   A pattern is here.

We ate our homemade ice cream for dessert!  But alternatively, you could make homemade ice cream in a machine, like Rachel who gave us the recipe recently.

I cut triangles out of tan cardstock and then I crimped the cones with a Paper Crimper.  We traced the kid's hands, so I just had a plethora of colors so they could choose their favorite "color".  I bought Red Pompoms for the "cherry" on top.  Then I had a hole punch and various paper to hole punch in case they wanted chocolate chips, sprinkles or bubblegum.

A fun tidbit: July is National Ice Cream Month, the 3rd Sunday in July is Ice Cream Day and July 15 is Ice Cream Cone Day.  Who knew?  But one thing I know is that ice cream must be good for the soul because my dad had a scoop or two just about every night of my childhood and he is the healthiest grandpa I know! Other fun ice cream facts are here!


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C is for Cloud Lesson Plan

Below are some "C is for Cloud" themed activities I did with my two boys, ages 5 and 3! Happy Learning!

Books

Below are two picture books to read and enjoy as you study clouds:

• It Looked Like Spilt Milkby Charles G. Shaw is a book that embraces the delight of looking at the clouds and imagining all the different things that the clouds look like. 
•  Shapes in the Sky: A Book About Clouds  by Josepha Sherman is a good nonfiction book about clouds that gives factual information in an easy to understand way. It was short and simple enough for my preschoolers to listen to while at the same time it reviewed the definition of clouds and what the different types of clouds are.

Learning the Letter

For a sensory and language activity in one, practice writing the letter C or short words that include the letter c in shaving cream "clouds" that you squirt on a cookie sheet. My younger child loved this. Or, if your kids are a bit more squeamish about touching the shaving cream (as my older son is), you could put the shaving cream in a plastic bag and let them draw the letters and words that way.

Math Activity

Play a counting game with a felt cloud, umbrellas,and raindrops. I had made this game previously for our U is for Umbrella unit we had done another year and we pulled it out again when we studied clouds. I gave each child an umbrella and put a white felt cloud with raindrops on it in the center. I clapped my hands (like thunder) and they listened to see how many times I clapped. They chose the corresponding number of raindrops from the cloud and put them on their umbrellas. We repeated several times and then they each took turns doing the thunder while I played along.

Science: Cloud Study
Learn what clouds are and learn about the three main types of clouds: cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. (You can go into more depth than this with older kids, but with preschoolers, we just kept it simple with those three). While learning, you could try a couple very simple hands-on activities that we did.

• We talked about how clouds are formed from moisture in the air. I had my children blow onto a glass window to see the clouds that their breath made.
• We used straws to blow cotton balls around, just as the wind blows clouds through the sky. You can also use these same cotton balls to model different types of clouds. A regular cotton ball can represent a cumulus cloud. Stretch it out and flatten it to become a stratus cloud. Make it even thinner--as wispy as you can--to make a cirrus cloud.
• We demonstrated how rain comes from clouds. First, we filled a sponge "cloud" with water and showed how when the sponge got full it could no longer hold all the water, so it needed to "rain." We also demonstrated rain using a shaving cream "cloud" floating on water and food coloring as the rain as in this demonstration here.

Craft

For a craft, give the children blue construction paper. Have them create clouds by using sponges and paints to paint on white, grey, and pink clouds. Or you could have the kids glue on cotton ball clouds. You could add a cute little rhyme below as in this lesson, or you could just have the kids draw whatever scene they want below the clouds. My oldest always has to incorporate trains or cowboys into his projects, so he drew a Western scene underneath his clouds--but sadly I forgot to get a picture of his artwork. Below is my 3-year-old with his sponge painting--very simple but fun nonetheless!

Snack Time

Make blue Jell-O in clear plastic cups. Squirt whipped cream "clouds" on top.

If you are connecting your study of clouds to a discussion about rain, you could also have a cheese "umbrella" (I used a straw for the handle), with blueberry "raindrops."

Field Trip
Go on a walk and identify the types of clouds you see in the sky around you. Reinforce what you have learned throughout the week by looking at the sky every day and noticing the different types of clouds you see.

For Further Exploration
When we studied clouds, we also talked about rain and repeated some of the U is for Umbrella books and activities that I previously shared. Go check out those activities and see if they might fit into your cloud study as well!

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Y is for You Lesson Plan (Preschool or Elementary)

Y is for You
is a very fun preschool.  We...

• Traced letter Y
• Had calendar/weather
• Played the spider web game with Yellow Yarn to name all the words we could think of that started with Y. This is played by saying a word that starts with Y and then throwing the ball of yarn to another preschooler while holding on to the end.  They do the same thing and it continues until you have a spider web of yellow yarn and lots of Y letter words!
• Played a Y opposite riddle game.  Each answer was an opposite and started with the letter Y {What's the opposite of old (young), no (yes), whisper (yell), me (you), today (yesterday), and yucky (yucky)?}
• Did exercises while pretending to be letter Y's
• Read books about being unique: Hooray for You , Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day , Amazing Grace, Whoever You Are, Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?
 and Stephanie's Ponytail
• Craft Time:  Made frames to focus on "you".  I printed a picture of the preschool group from a previous lesson to insert in the frame.  I picked these frames up at a local craft store like Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  There are Foam Frames that you can buy on Amazon as well. Then I bought foam letters  and pom poms to accessorize.

 

• Talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up {answers included ice cream truck driver, dance teacher, army man, scientist, pilot, teacher, mom, dad}
• V.I.P (Very Important Person) time: We shared brown paper bags filled with things about each preschooler and guessed whose they were.  The week before, I sent home a note that asked parents to fill a brown paper lunch bag with things about their child and their interests.  Then we sat down, mixed up the bags and presented them without anyone knowing whose it was.  The kids had to guess after I pulled out all the items.  Once they guessed, I had them come forward and anyone could ask a question if they wanted.  They felt very excited to be focused in on.  
• Frosted cupcakes to look like themselves.  I pre-baked the cupcakes.  The kids frosted them and I had a variety of candy that could look like eyes, nose and ears (mini chewy sweettarts, runts, chocolate chips, smarties, m&ms, skittles).  I found pull n' peel licorice perfect for the hair.  And sour watermelons a great shape for the mouth.

• Sang songs about things that start with the letter Y
  

Let's Give A Yell For Y
(Tune: The Farmer In The Dell)
Let's give a yell for Y!
Let's give a yell for Y!
Y is for you and for yellow, too.
Let's give a yell for Y!

Who Is Wearing Yellow?
(Tune: The Farmer In The Dell)
Who is wearing yellow?
Who is wearing yellow?
Hi Ho the derry-o
Who is wearing yellow?
____ is wearing yellow.
____ is wearing yellow.
Hi Ho the derry-o
____ is wearing yellow.

We Wish You A Happy Y Week
(Tune: We Wish You A Merry Christmas)
We wish you a happy Y week.
(Form the letter Y with your arms over your head.)
We wish you a happy Y week.
We wish you a happy Y week.
Y-y-y-y-y.
(Make the sound of Y)
Let's all yodel now for Y week...
Let's all yo-yo now for Y week...
Repeat:
We wish you a happy Y week...

Yellow Song
(Tune: Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinah")
Yellow is the color of bananas
Yellow is the color of the sunshine, too
Yellow is the color of corn on the cob
I like yellow don't you?

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D is for Dinosaur Lesson Plan #2

The happy Dinosaurs

Their favorite thing to do - ROAR!!!

Dinosaurs are always a fun and popular theme. For preschool, we:

• Traced the letter D
• Turned ourselves into dinosaurs by making headbands and giving our names "osaurus" suffixes!  I found free clipart of a dinosaur online.  There were so many to pick from like these.  Then I copied them onto tan cardstock.  I cut a headband about 1 1/2" tall x 11" wide for the kid's heads.  If their heads are big enough, you may have to cut two of these and staple them together.  Then fit the headband to the size of the child.  The kids colored the dinosaurs, then we glued them on the headband and placed it on their heads.
  
• Had Calendar/Weather Time with singing, counting, and birthday recognition
• Talked about the letter D and what words start with D (some ideas were dad, dude {thank you to the boys}, donut, doll, donkey, dog, doctor and dinosaur)
• Graphed our favorite dinosaurs as a group
• Talked about the different kinds of dinosaurs and then counted them (plastic figurines) and sorted them into categories by colors and features
• Had a fun flannel board story about 5 little dinosaurs that eventually all went away...
  
  
  Five Crazy Dinosaurs
  5 crazy Dinosaurs sweeping the floor
  1 got swept away, then there were four
  4 crazy Dinosaurs chased by a bee,
  1 got stung, then there were 3
  3 crazy Dinosaurs playing with glue,
  1 got stuck, then there were 2
  2 crazy Dinosaurs out for a run
  1 fell down, then there was 1
  1 crazy Dinosaur acting like a hero
  He went out to save the others, then there were zero
  
  
• Learned just how big a dinosaurs mouth is, hunted for his teeth, counted his teeth, got eaten up and promptly pulled out all his teeth! (The kids predicted how big the mouth of the T-Rex was. Then we had to find out... They went on a hunt for all of his teeth and placed them inside this mouth. They climbed inside his mouth and realized just how big a dinosaur's mouth was. They were really funny. The kids got really excited about how much money T-Rex would earn from the tooth fairy for all those teeth!)
  
• Happily learned what the word extinct means :)
• Made a Stegosaurus out of the letter D (I cut out large letter D's out of green cardstock.  Then I cut out rectangles and triangles and ovals out of 2 different shades of green cardstocks.  The kids made patterns for the triangles and rectangles for spikes and legs.  The ovals were the head and tail.  We finished by gluing on a googly eye and glued everything to a tan piece of cardstock.)
  
• Practiced our patterns with the triangles on the Stegosaurus
• Reviewed our shapes with our Stegosaurus
• Had a dinosaur dig with cracker crumbs, gummy dinosaurs, and dinosaur eggs.  You could have the dinosaur eggs be any round candy.  There are some really cute nerd candies that are chewy and just the look of dinosaur eggs! (This was the most popular event of preschool - the dinosaur dig for snack time. The kids each got a bowl of "dirt" (graham cracker crumbs) to dig for dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs. They got "shovels" (spoons) and brushes (paint brushes) to dig away and find 10 dinosaurs and 5 eggs. They loved it and when they were all done, they wanted to do it all again.)
  
• Learned what a paleontologist is while doing the dinosaur dig
• Read several "How do Dinosaur" books by Jane Tolen like How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?.
  
• Acted out a dinosaur's typical day - stomping, chomping, roaring, swimming, sleeping
• Sang oodles of songs... I posted them below the pictures
• built a dinosaur village with blocks and plastic dinos
• Sang lots of songs:

Triceratops

(Sung to: Three Blind Mice)

Look and see. One, two, three.

Count with me. One, two, three.

Triceratops has three big horns.

That's the way that he was born.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Hiding Dinosaurs

Dinosaur, Dinosaur, where can you be?

Hiding behind me (hands behind back)

Where you cannot see,

Now you see one. (Bring out one hand)

It's waiting for you.

Here comes another, (bring out other hand)

And now you see two!

Dinosaur Stomp

(sung to "Glory, Glory Hallelujah")

I love to stomp and chomp and romp throughout the land

I love to stomp and chomp and romp throughout the land

Oh, I love to stomp and romp throughout the land

How I love to be a Dinosaur

Sleepy Dinos

(To the tune of See the Bunnies Sleeping)

Sleeping Dinosaurs, Till it's nearly noon,

Come let us wake them, with a merry tune

Oh so still, Are they ill?

Wake up little Dino's! (Shout)

Stomp Little Dino's (stomp on the ground)

Stomp, stomp, stomp (stomp on the ground)

Stomp Little Dino's (stomp on the ground)

Stomp, stomp, stomp (stomp on the ground)

Stomp little Dinosaurs (stomp on the ground)

Stomping, and stomping and Stomp and Stop

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs

(Sung to "Row, row, row your boat")

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs Eating fruits and leaves

Take a bite, chew it up and spit out the seeds (Make spitting sound)

Dinosaurs of Long Ago

The Dinosaurs lived long ago,

And walked like this, and that. (Walk heavy like Dino's)

Some were large (Stretch arms apart.)

And some were small. (Squat down.)

Some liked water (Swimming motion)

And some liked land (Stomp feet.)

Some had wings that flapped and flapped. (Flap arms)

Some had long necks that stretched and stretched (Put hand above head)

The meanest, rudest one of all was ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex

These were the Dinosaurs of long ago.

Goodness gracious! Where did they go?

Dinosaurs Lived Long Ago

(sung to "London Bridge is Falling Down")

Dinosaurs lived long ago, long ago, long ago,

Dinosaurs lived long ago, That's prehistoric!

Tyrannosaurus was very mean, very mean, Very mean,

Tyrannosaurus was very mean, That's prehistoric!

Brontosaurus was very big, very big, very big,

Brontosaurus was very big, that's prehistoric!

Stegosaurus wore heavy spikes, heavy spikes, heavy spikes,

Stegosaurus wore heavy spikes, that's prehistoric!

Triceratops had big sharp horns, big sharp horns, big sharp horns,

Triceratops had big sharp horns, that's prehistoric!

Pterodactyl could fly in the air, fly in the air, fly in the air,

Pterodactyl could fly in the air, that's prehistoric!

All the Dinosaurs disappeared, disappeared, disappeared,

All the Dinosaurs disappeared, that's why their prehistoric!

See more ideas from Rachel's Dinosaur Lesson Plan she posted previously.

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