Preschool Butterfly Life Cycle Unit - Includes Reading, Science, Math/Counting, Nutrition, Art, and Mixed Media

Below is a unit I made for teaching the girls about butterflies. I think this may be my key to doing preschool! I started right before the caterpillars came in the mail reading about caterpillar eggs and getting the girls really excited for the arrival of the caterpillars. once they arrived, we followed them through their life cycle and did appropriate activities for each stage, which I have listed below and divided by subject. Because Amita is currently in part time preschool, we did this unit over about 6 weeks - just taking our time and doing something when we got a chance. It turned out to be about 20 minutes a day of time and then we talked about it quite a lot throughout the day. All in all, it was a great success and now I have to decide the next unit I want to teach!

Science:

I bought a butterfly kit on amazon where they mail you baby caterpillars and provide everything you need to witness the entire life cycle of the butterfly. This is the only thing I purchased out of the entire unit.

Reading (all of these books I rented from the library):

Life Cycle:

Eggs, Legs, Wings: A Butterfly Life Cycle (First Graphics: Nature Cycles) by Sharon Knudsen

First The Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger 

This book is about all life cycles that start with eggs but it included butterflies so I thought it would still be good.

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

I also rented a book called Butterfly Eggs, a non-fiction book just about eggs, but I can't seem to find a picture.

Caterpillars:

Caterpillars by Marilyn Sinter

Butterfly Eggs

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Butterflies:

Glasswings by Elisa Kleven

Butterfly by Mark Inkpen

Bird, Butterfly, Eel by James Prosek

Mixed Media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tvl6wz7e9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tvl6wz7e9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFN4cuBiWns&list=PLF2371CE81ACC4017

I also rented these movies from the library:

Sorry it is sideways, I can't get it to rotate. I rented The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Stories and The Story of the Butterfly.

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBkOOgEFi2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tvl6wz7e9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YVqHnw0W-Q

Nutrition:

For a nutrition aspect, I had the kids some of the foods mentioned in the Very Hungry Caterpillar. They LOVED it and still talk about the different kinds of food. Amita's favorite was the pickle and Ashima enjoyed the Salami.

Math/Counting: 

Art:

We made "stained glass" butterflies after reading Glasswings: A Butterfly's Story with contact paper, tissue paper, construction paper, and scissors.

We also made caterpillars out of circles and glued the circles together. With Ashima I worked on identifying colors when we did this. 

This link has a lot of butterfly coloring pages: http://www.coloring.ws/butterfly1.htm

I found this kit at Wal-Mart for $5.00 and we made these one day:

The girls really enjoy seeing them on the fridge every day!

Also:

Beginning the Overwhelming Research Journey

When I first started researching homeschooling, I was completely  overwhelmed. I was on Amazon looking at book after book, all fairly expensive, none of which I was sure would help. My beginning knowledge base was too small and they were all too specific. I was not homeschooling for religious reasons and I had absolutely no clue where to start. Curriculum? Co-ops? Math? Science? Reading? There were too many options and no clear path forward I quickly got frustrated.

My next line of defense in the homeschooling research battle was the public library. It turned out they had a ton of great resources for those just staring homeschool. I am working on making my way through the books and will write interesting things from each book as well as an overall review of the book. So far they have been tremendously helpful (and free!).

I plan to spend some money to purchase curriculums, materials, and supplements. However, I'm going to do it once I know what the heck I'm doing. Until such time, these books are providing the foundation for me to figure out how I want homeschooling to work for our family. Once I have some basic questions answered, I can move to the more specific books.

These are my main questions regarding beginning homeschooling:

1. What does homeschooling look like on a day-to-day basis?
2. What curriculum do I choose? How do I pick?
3. How do I know that the girls are meeting grade-level markers and indicators?
4. How do I evaluate their knowledge?
5. How do I know what they need to know at any given time? 
6. How do I teach preschool/elementary school concepts (I'm not an elementary teacher!)?
7. What kind of co-ops exist in the area we will be moving to?
8. What resources are available for parents?
9. What kids of social activities are available for home schooled children?
10. Exactly what parts of the public education can I use (art, music, PE, IEP services, etc.)?
11. What are the Wisconsin state requirements for homeschooling and what paperwork is required to be submitted to the state?
12. Does the local public school offer any homeschool resources (Parents as Teachers, homeschool coordinators, etc.)?

It is my hope that through internet research and the resources shown below I should have a very good knowledge base by the time I am finished.