Today was butterfly day!! We also focused on the color purple today, which was a lot of fun! In addition to the projects I will show you pictures of, we also read a lot of books, played games, stacked blocks, and talked about the butterfly cycle.

Because we are also homeschooling to be able to teach Abbi about God in her school work, we also told her about how God can make us a totally new creation, just like he turns the caterpillar into a butterfly. It was a great lesson today! We really enjoyed it!

As you can see, we started off the day with coloring a pretty purple butterfly!

Then we made an egg carton caterpillar (we cut off 3 "eggs" from the egg carton and kept them together. then we colored them purple! then i poked two holes at the top of the front "egg" and poked a pipe cleaner through the top. we wound the pipe cleaner around abbi's finger to make it curl. then we glued on eyes!)

After that we made a cocoon for our caterpillar out of a paper sack (just "blew" into it to open it up and then twisted the top)

Our last craft of the day was to make a purple butterfly. (We colored two coffee filters with a purple marker. then we scrunched them together in the middle, making 4 "wings". then we took a pipe cleaner and wound it around the scrunched part, and used Abbi's finger to make the antenna curl).

Once all three of those crafts were done, we put them in the right order on the table, and talked about the life cycle of the butterfly while we played with them!

After we were done with our craft we sang a song (to the tune of "itsy bitsy spider") (this one was also taken from http://www.perpetualpreschool.com )

"the little caterpillar
crawled up into a tree
spun his cocoon
and slept so quietly.
all through the winter
he didnt make a sound.
he dreamt of his new life when
he'd be flying all around.

while he was sleeping
the snow did gently fall
winter came and went
then he heard the robin's call
'come on mr. butterfly
out of your cocoon
spread your wings and fly for me
while I sing my tune'"

We ended our day with a butterfly snack! We made a piece of toast, and cut it into 4 triangles. Then we arranged them to look like "wings" :) We spread on peanut butter and sprinkled it with raisins for "spots". We used two pretzel sticks for antennae!

Abbi also learned to say "purple" today! YAY ABBI!!!

Now, as a reward Abbi is watching Dora and Blues Clues, learning about shapes and colors!

what a fun day we had!

This fun bird's nest was one of our projects today for learning about birds! It was incredibly easy to make and very educational (and pretty!!)

We started out the morning by making our "eggs" out of a flour, salt, and water clay (1c flour, 1/3c salt, 1/2c water). We rolled the dough between our fingers and squished it with our hands, and made it into eggs. Then we placed our eggs into a muffin tin to bake. Have your child place the tin into a COLD oven, and THEN set the temperature to 225*. Bake for at least 3-4 hours to dry.

(this "rolling" and "squishing" the dough is a great sensory experience too! AND - the dough is TOTALLY safe to eat for anyone who has a child that still puts everything in their mouth!)

NExt we had a mid-morning snack that consisted of "nests" of shredded wheat and peanut butter that had been pressed up against muffin cups, then filled with jelly beans!

After we put our eggs in the oven to "sit," (like a mommy bird sits on her birds to keep them warm), and ate our snack, we made a nest. We took a lunch sack and rolled/crunched it down to make a nest-like shape. it doesnt have to be perfect at all. I then took some leaves I had pruned from my ivy this morning that were dying, and we used basic white glue to glue them on to the bag. It gave the nest a really realistic feel! It also helped us gather things from around our environment to make the nest like the birds do!

While we were making the nest we sang a bird song to the tune of "i'm a little teapot" (this was taken from a suggestion at http://www.theperpetualpreschool.com

"I'm a little birdy
short and fat
I eat worms
I dont like cats
when I see a cat
come out to play
i spread my wings
and fly away"

She loved the song and we sang that over and over and OVER AND OVERRRRR lol

We also watched a special on Animal Planet about bird houses and birds for 30 minutes, and talked about how they fly, what they eat, and why they need houses.

We painted our left over "eggs" and sorted them by color, and kept on singing our song.

We also made a bird feeder out of a piece of toast, spread with peanut butter, and sprinkled with oats. We hung it with some yarn and put it outside for the birds to give them strength before they fly south for the winter.

For lunch we had "worms" (aka spaghetti) and boiled eggs

After lunch our eggs were done "sitting" so we put them in the nest and took a picture!

Happy Tuesday!