Today I presented a lesson on butterflies to a class of first graders. The lesson was to compliment their classroom studies on the life cycle of butterflies.We began class by doing a kinethestic activity acting out the life stages of a butterfly. Rolled up as an egg. Hatched into a cocoon. Standing with hands over head for a chrysalis and then arms out for a butterly.
The days objective was two fold: I wanted students to think about the unique traits that help flowers attract butterflies to their pollen. In this part of the lesson the students had to draw their own flower based on what they had observed in a walk around the garden and also by the story that I read. The expectation was to design a flower- thinking about color, shape and lines. Students noted that smells also contribute to flowers attracting butterflies. This component could not be expressed in a drawing, but my optional activity was to write a poem about how a flower calls to butterflies. In this case you could definitely add scent.
The second part of the lesson was to identify plants in the garden for each stage of the life cycle. I put the children into groups and gave them each life cycle cards. They were then supposed to find places around the garden to put their egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly. The kids had a good time doing this, but the papers would not stay put as it was a blustery day. I think it would be good to either laminate the cards or actually think of other ways to represent these areas in the garden.
Finally a culminating activity that would have been nice would have been to put their flowers on a large piece of butcher paper representing our classroom’s garden.
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