plants and bugs

Late April we began our study on plants and soil. I like to start a unit of study by charting what we wonder about. I had the kids write what they wonder about on a vegetable. I took all the vegetables and made a veggie garden.

Here is our wonder wall!

We read Dirt: The Scoop on Soil and then explored soil with cute gardening tools from the Target dollar spot and hand lenses.

Then it was onto insects. I ordered live caterpillar larva from Amazon so we could observe the life cycle of a butterfly. We watched the caterpillars grow and change into butterflies.

 We recorded our observations here. I just added this to my insect unit. You can get it here.

I also got this from Insect Lore on Amazon. They are figures that show how butterflies grow and change. I also made a mini unit to go along with this. You can find it here.

I added this to one of my morning tubs. The kids get to read a book on the butterfly life cycle. Then they get to build the life cycle using a mini anchor chart and the life cycle stages pieces. Then they get to make a mini butterfly life cycle book.

 I made one for ladybugs as well. You can find it here.

Building the ladybug life cycle

Ladybug life cycle mini book

insects

I can't even believe it is May! Summer is just around the corner. We wrapped up our insect study a few weeks ago. Check out what we've been learning about.

 

 

We illustrated and labeled the butterfly life cycle in our science journals.

 

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and retold the story using the story props and retelling rope.

 

They got their own story props to use to retell and sequence the story. As requested the story props colored and black and white have been included in my insect unit available very soon on TPT.

 

We learned that insects have compound eyes. These activities are from Julie Lee and Deanna Jump.

 

 We illustrated our big science word in our science journals.

 

 

Here are some of the anchor charts we made after learning about each insect.

 

 

Check back soon for this unit!

 

summer olympics unit and insects

I am so excited about this unit. I love watching the Olympics and I'm going to love teaching my kiddos about it. Come back to see more of this unit in my classroom.

Here is a little preview of some of the things included in this unit. Check it out here to see what all is included.

Now here is the rest of our insect study.

We graphed do you think bugs are creepy or cool? This adorable graph idea came from Julie Lee.

We made fireflies and charted our new learning on a circle map.

We made bug glyphs and wrote about what bugs us. These two activities cam from Deanna Jump's insect unit.

We wrote about the butterfly life cycle using interactive writing. This idea came from Deanna Jump.

Then I had them illustrate the butterfly life cycle in their science journals.

I loved this idea from chalk talk. I was so impressed with the big words my class was able to predict all before reading the book. We predicted what words we would find in the book, Waiting For Wings.

While reading the book we checked off each word that was read. Then we filled in the blanks using words we predicted.

We drew and painted butterflies using directed drawing then they measured their butterfly wingspan using inch cubes. This idea came from Julie Lee.

We illustrated the word metamorphosis in our science journals.

We learned that insects have compound eyes. Here is our anchor chart inspired from Deanna Jump.

They illustrated another big word in their science journal.

 We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and retold the story with our retelling pieces.

And another goodie from Julie Lee. We learned how strong ants are. It would be like us holding a car!