Butterfly Learning at Story Time

Have you ever raised caterpillars into butterflies, and watched the magical transformation up close? I've done it many times with classes of children, and we're doing it again at the library.

A week ago we received a special package, 5 tiny little caterpillars in a jar of food, and a net home for them to grow into.  We observed the tiny creatures, and talked about what they would soon do.  (You can see that post here.)

When we returned to story time this week, we no longer had caterpillars - we had 5 magnificent cocoons!  Ms. Debbie carefully showed them to the children, then transferred them into the net home they'll soon inhabit.

We read several butterfly books, both fiction and non-fiction, and learned some great new vocabulary: proboscis, metamorphosis, life cycle, symmetry, chrysalis and more.

To follow up we painted egg carton caterpillars, and gave them pipe cleaner antennae.

We made life butterfly life cycles from pasta (risotto for eggs, rotini for caterpillars, shells for the chrysalis, and of course bow-tie noodles for the butterflies!

We practiced the concept of symmetry by decorating some lovely die-cut butterflies.

We even made a pictograph: Do you prefer caterpillars or butterflies?  Can you guess which one was the most popular?

For all the learning and fun that we had, the best is yet to come.  We're waiting for our butterflies to hatch, and then we'll take them outside, where they belong, and set them free.  If we are very lucky the life cycle will start again in the garden around our library, and we'll have butterflies all summer!

Why graph with kids?

If you are a regular reader (:-) Thank you!), you may have noticed that I talk about graphing with children fairly often.  Looking back over past blogs, you can see graphs about ice cream flavors, what day we brought apples to school, favorite characters, and preferred activities.  We graphed about the weather every day, and I created hundreds (yes, really) of graphs for us so we could do a graph every day after lunch.

So, why would I do that?  Why take up valuable classroom time, not to mention valuable preparation time, for something so simple?  Could it possibly be that worthwhile?  What do children really learn from graphing?

Vocabulary
Children learn language by hearing it and then by speaking it.  They can't learn words they don't hear (or read), and vocabulary is a strong indicator of success in school and in life.  Hearing and using language is very important, and graphing offers opportunities to use a lot of math language!  We all want our children to be successful, so using a rich and varied vocabulary is very important.

Numeracy
When we graph with students, including looking back at the graph and learning how to use the data it contains, we're talking about numbers and their relationships with each other.  Our students count to answer questions like "How many ___", and counting, especially for the youngest kiddos, reinforces the number sequence and 1-1 correspondence (saying one number for each object or mark on the graph.) We use numerals, the written form of numbers.  As an early childhood teacher, I've noticed that children are much more likely to have worked on letters at home, than to have worked with numbers.  They need to be able to read the symbols for both, and graphing provides a real life, hands on, engaging way to work with numbers.  (Especially if you're graphing about something they care about, like ice cream flavors or favorite characters!)

Computation
Math, plain and simple.  "How many more ___ than ___?" is actually a subtraction question.  "How many ___ and ___?" is an addition problem.  Deciding which choice on the graph had the most or fewest (the kiddos often say which one "won" or "lost") involves comparing 2 numbers.  The physical representation of those numbers on the graph makes it a concrete way for young children to learn about adding and subtracting, by counting on and counting down. While you really shouldn't expect a 3 year old to be able to answer 9 - 5 = ?, if you show them a graph with those numbers represented, they can definitely figure it out!  We're preparing their brains for higher learning skills.

There are a lot of great reasons to graph with young children, not the least of which is to spend quality time talking with them, and letting them express their ideas and favorites.  It's pretty awesome that doing something so fun turns out to be really educational and developmentally appropriate too!  If you would like a copy of these graphing posters (without my picture on them), they are FREE on my TeachersPayTeachers store.  I would be honored it you would download them, print them, and then go have some fun learning about graphs with the youngsters in your life!  If you find them useful, taking a moment to provide feedback on TpT is a great way to tell me thank you.

TPT Seller Challenge Week 1: Makeover Madness (and a SALE!)

For the next 4 weeks I'll be participating in a TPT Seller Challenge, hosted by 4 great bloggers (see their links at the end of this post).

This week's challenge is to take a product, and make it even better. I'm really excited to participate, because that's exactly what I've been working on for the last 6 weeks or so.

Over the last year, I've made 38 sentence picture match activities - wow!  When I first began making them, they were 10-12 pages, included 12 sentences and pictures to match, 1-2 vocabulary pages, 1-2 follow up worksheets, a leveled list of sight words used, and of course, directions.  They make awesome reading centers, and when I taught kindergarteners, they LOVED them.   

Recently I decided to add a little more to my sentence picture match sets, and I've been working at it.  My current and revised sets have 18 sentences and pictures to match, including more diverse reading levels, so teachers can choose the sentences that are just right for each student or reading group, challenging but not overwhelming readers with different skill levels.  I've also been enlarging the graphics to make them more appealing to kiddos, adding thematic writing paper, and a greater variety of worksheets that cover even more skills.  I think these are good changes!

One of my sets that I needed to update was this one:

Looking back at it, I wanted to make the vocabulary pages more appealing, so I added a border, spread the vehicles out, and enlarged them.  I also added a page of road signs.

Next, I added 6 more sentences and pictures, including a couple of questions.  The extra sentences added the following words: this, police, trash, green, have, you, ever, been, in, taxi, cab, some, call, these, love, bugs, five, road, signs.  Many of these are sight words, but others are transportation vocabulary words, and are included on the vocabulary posters - supporting students as they decode each sentence.  The enhanced vocabulary pages also work well with the thematic writing paper I added.  I chose to use a fire truck picture on the writing paper, so it can be used with a transportation, community helpers, or fire safety theme.

Here is the resulting update:

What do you think?  I'm really happy with the improvements, but I'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions.  Is there another skill you'd like to see added to my sentence picture match sets, or maybe a theme you think I should make a set for? I am open to your suggestions either here on my blog, or at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

As part of the makeover challenge, I'm putting this product and all 38 of my sentence picture match activities on sale for the next 4 days, through Friday June 19th.  If you are a bargain hunter (and who isn't?!) you may want to consider getting my other sentence picture match products at lower prices before I update them.  You can always re-download for free on TeachersPayTeachers, getting improved products at no extra cost!  To find out if any of your purchases have been updated, go to the My Purchases tab.  Updates will have a red message below them that says Newly Revised Re-download.

Thanks for stopping by, have an awesome day!
Paula