Sharks, Week of May 25

🦋 Butterflies and Metamorphosis 🐛

Monday May 25

Happy Memorial Day!

Music Monday—Enjoy these butterfly songs from around the world
· Love is Like a Butterfly by Dolly Parton
· La Mariposa
· The Butterfly Dance
· Butterfly Lovers
· Abebe
· The Butterfly

Memorial Day Holiday:

If appropriate, find a way to remember and honor all of those who have given their lives in the service of our country.

Tuesday May 26

Creative Exploration
Sharpie and watercolor butterflies
Explore some different colors and patterns of butterfly’s wings. Here is a Website to get you started. Draw the outline of a butterfly with your sharpie on thick paper. Add a pattern to the wings if you want. Use watercolor paints to add color to the wings.

Butterfly Collage
Use your butterfly templates from the numeracy activity below to make a piece of art. Glue butterflies and pictures of flowers to paper to create a collage, or draw scenery and add your butterflies.

Literacy
· Read Aloud: Waiting For Wings by Lois Elhert
· Read Aloud: A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston

Numeracy
Catching Butterflies: Print these templates for SMALL MEDIUM LARGE Butterflies.

Color them if you wish or print on colored paper. Hide the butterflies around your house and let your child “catch” as many as they can find. Sort them by size, count the number of each, count the total number, and create patterns.

Science
Metamorphosis: The Great Transformation
Watch this video showing the complete life cycle of a painted lady butterfly.

Butterfly life cycle:
Print this wheel showing the butterfly life cycle. Color the stages then connect the cover. Talk about the different stages as you rotate through the cycle.

Wednesday May 27

Creative Exploration
Life Cycle Plate
Take a paper plate and divide it into fourths. Add one label to each section “Egg”, “Larva”, “Pupa”, “Adult”. Illustrate each section to show the stages of a butterfly’s life cycle. Alternatives: use shaped pasta, or other small items, to represent each stage and glue them in the correct section or find pictures of each stage and glue them in the correct section.

Build a Butterfly
Collect some reusable materials such as fabric, cardboard, coffee filters, cardboard tubes, ribbons, caps/lids, paper shapes, buttons, etc. Use your objects to build a butterfly. What other types of insects could you build?

Becoming a Butterfly
Follow along to this guided meditation and imagine becoming a butterfly.

Literacy
Butterfly Poem
Print a copy of “The Pretty Butterfly”. Read the poem aloud several times then create an illustration for the poem on the paper.

Read Aloud
Monarch and the Milkweed by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore

Numeracy
Caterpillar Sequence - Trace circles on paper and cut them out. Write a sequence of numbers, one number per circle. Glue them in numerical order then add a head and draw legs on your caterpillar.

Cooking Project
Tortilla Roll-ups
Spread your “sticky topping on one side of a flour tortilla. Spread your other topping evenly across the tortilla. Beginning at one side, tightly roll the tortilla up. Use a butter knife to cut the tortilla into smaller pieces for eating.

Some combination ideas:
- Nut Butter and Jam or thinly sliced fruit (adds another chance to practice cutting)
- Cream Cheese and herbs, thin sandwich meat, or tomatoes
- Honey, apples, and cinnamon
- Mashed beans and cheese
- Hummus, cucumbers, shredded carrots
- Cream cheese, ham, and pickles

Let your children create their own combinations!

Community Adventure
Spread a little Kindness :)

Miss Rachelle and I have been playing a surprise on your porch game for about 11 years.

We sneak to the other’s home and leave something special. Maybe it’s a gift, card, balloons and sometime even our favorite treats. (Mine Chocolate :) Miss Rachelle Coffee) It can be anything, as it’s just a way to say we're thinking of you and to show how special we are to each other.

Just this last week Miss Rachelle came to my home and left me some books and a yummy treat.

It was so fun to look out my window and see she was thinking of me and left a surprise that was just for me.

Do you do something special for someone?Maybe, your family can enjoy our fun game of delivering something special to someone and placing it on their porch. I'm sure it will make your heart happy to give, as well as excitement for them to receive such a notable surprise.

Hugs, Miss Caroline

Thursday May 28

Creative Exploration
Caterpillar Stamping
Put paint on a paper plate, or other flat container. Dip the end of a cardboard tube in the paint then stamp circles onto paper. Can you stamp the circles in a long line to resemble a caterpillar’s body? Use markers or small paint brush to add details.

Beaded Butterflies
Take 2 pipe cleaners and string beads on them. Twist each side into a large oval with a little bit extra left for the antenna/body. Then twist each oval in the center to create the upper and lower wing for each side. Using the small piece of pipe cleaner in the center, add one bead on each side for a spacer and then twist them together to connect both sides and create antennas.

Literacy
· Read Aloud - Frogs by Gail Gibbons
After watching the read aloud, print this cut-and-paste frog life cycle. When finished, discuss similarities between a butterfly’s and frog’s life cycle.

· Read Aloud -A Ladybug Larva Grows Up by Katie Marisco

· Ladybug Life Cycle: Print this page about the ladybug life cycle. How is it similar to a butterfly’s life cycle? How is it similar to Frog’s life cycle? How are they different?

Numeracy
Feed the very hungry caterpillar
Take a piece of cardboard and draw or paint a caterpillar on it and have an adult cut a hole for the mouth. You could also just use a paper bag, a basket, or other container to be the “caterpillar”. Use plastic food, small balls, or bean bags and see how much you can feed the caterpillar by tossing the “food” into the mouth. If you have items of different colors, your family could challenge you to feed a certain number of foods. For example, “feed the caterpillar 3 green foods” or “feed the caterpillar 2 oranges”

Froggy Math
Print these frogs and cut them apart. Draw a number of eggs in a “pond” and match the adult frogs to the number, or glue the adult to a piece of paper and draw the number of eggs they laid. Cut out some lily pads and write numbers, draw an amount of dots, or write addition problems on each one. The adult frogs can only “hop” on the correct corresponding lily pads.

Movement
· Yoga - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Friday May 29

Creative Exploration
Butterfly Sponge Painting
Take a kitchen sponge and wrap a rubber band around the center. Squirt paint in a patter on one side of the sponge then fold it in half to transfer the paint to the other side, making a symmetrical pattern. Stamp the painted side onto a piece of paper.

Literacy
· Read Aloud - Glasswings: A Butterfly’s Story by Elisa Kleven

· Print the SMALL Butterfly Templates and these caterpillar templates. Write the uppercase Letters on the butterflies and the lowercase on the caterpillars. Let your child match the babies to the adults.

Numeracy
Butterfly Symmetry
Fold a large piece of paper in half and cut out half a butterfly (so when you open the fold you have a whole, symmetrical butterfly). Add paint to only ONE side of the butterfly’s wings. For younger children, drawing or taping a line down the center can help them remember to keep the paint on one side. When the one side is painted, fold the butterfly back in half, then open it up to see your butterfly with symmetrical wings just like real butterflies.

Symmetry with mirrors
Take a mirror that can stand on its own and put it on a table. Use small blocks, tangram shapes, or other small objects to place in a pattern on the table in front of the mirror. Notice the reflected pattern in the mirror. That’s symmetry.

Symmetry with Legos
Take a piece of masking tape and use it to divide a Lego baseplate in half. Have an adult, or older sibling to make a pattern on one side of the tape using smaller legos. Let your child use smaller lego bricks to build a symmetrical “picture” on the other side of the tape. It may be helpful to only offer the blocks needed to complete the pattern.

Alternative: Divide a cookie sheet or space on a table in half with masking tape. Use blocks or paper shapes to create a “picture” by placing the shapes and blocks on one side of the tape. Let your child try and build a symmetrical picture on the other side of the tape.

Fine Motor
· Cutting Practice - Print these pages and practice cutting along the lines.

Notes

Sharks' Blog

We Miss the Sharks!

Guess Who! Video

This friend spent a lot of time working on paper crafts during centers. Most often she would cut snowflakes but she also worked on making origami animals. Spend some time folding an origami cat or cutting snowflakes while you think of our friend.

This friend loves dinosaurs and would often share books about dinosaurs that he brought from home. He was also an expert at drawing sea creatures and spent a lot of time creating pictures with lots of fine details.

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