Posted on May 7, 2009 - by

Year 0: Week 28

Our school days are Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 9:30am, when we return from dropping off Ethan at Mother’s Day Out. Each bullet point is a 5-15 minute period of time.

This month we are trying a new activity. We will be learning about butterflies and doing a lapbook from homeschoolshare.com to contain all the new things we’ve learned. If you’d like to know more about what a lapbook is, please visit this post where I included helpful links that helped me learn more about this great way to present a unit study.

Monday:

• Mommy’s book club
• Errand, cleaning day

Tuesday:

• Pledge
  Weather: Record temperature, outside conditions
  Calendar: Write out weekly schedule
• Butterfly Lapbook
  

  **Just a note: We did WAY more today than I ever would have expected us to do. But, Kate was THRILLED with all the hands-on and learning and couldn’t get enough. We probably would have done even more, but I finally got too tired to keep going!

  • Wrote down the things that Kate already knew about butterflies in this mini-book (Handwriting)

  

  • Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Literature)
  • Completed this circle mini-book for the life cycle of a butterfly (Natural History)
  • Read Becoming Butterflies by Anne Rockwell (Literature)
  • Filled in caterpillar diet mini-book (Natural History)
  • Also filled in one difference between butterflies and moths on this Venn diagram mini-book (Natural History and Handwriting)
  • Read Springtime Addition by Jill Fuller and did the math included (Math)
• Lunch (1hr)
• MORE Butterfly Lapbook
  • Read Angelina and the Butterfly by Katharine Holabird (Literature)
  • Read Are You a Butterfly? by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries (Natural History)
  • Complete Caterpillar Questions Flap-book and Butterfly Diet mini-book (Natural History)
  • Kate was fascinated by the butterfly in the illustrations, so we pulled out the National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies to try to identify it. (Natural History)
  • While we were in the Field Guide we saw a diagram of the different parts of a butterfly and decided to go ahead and label our diagram mini-book, too. (Natural History)
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Wednesday:

• Story time at the Library (11:30 am)
• Turn in old and check out new books (12:00 pm)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Library Books
• Kate and I decided to draw a large butterfly outside using sidewalk chalk. I told her that she would draw half, and I would copy her half on the other side like a mirror. She knew that is called ‘symmetry’. We had fun not only discussing symmetry, but also using the anatomical names we have learned like fore wings and hind wings, antenna, proboscis, etc. She had a blast coloring with Mommy while also reinforcing things we had already learned about butterflies.

Thursday:

• Pledge
  Weather: Record temperature, outside conditions
  Calendar: Write out weekend schedule
• Butterfly Lapbook
  
  • Read Bob and Otto by Robert O. Bruel. Cute story about an earthworm and a caterpillar who are friends, until one day Bob wants to climb a tree and Otto wants to dig. Great way to differentiate caterpillars from ‘worms’. (Literature)

  • Read Born to be a Butterfly by Karen Wallace – an early reader about the life cycle of a butterfly. It even includes a picture glossary at the back for those ‘hard’ words like tongue and chysalis.
  • Read The Butterfly by Diana Noonan (Natural History)
  • Complete the mini-book on defenses based on pages 8-9.
  • Watch the life cycle of a Pipevine Swallowtail.
  • Read pg 25 in A Backyard Flower Garden for Kids by Amie Jane Leavitt to learn about the types of flowers attract butterflies. (Natural History)
  • Also read about specific plants for attracting butterflies in Houston.
• Lunch (1hr)
• Complete the Favorite Flowers shaped mini-book.
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Friday:

• Nature Walk

Just another note: This Sunday will be Mother’s Day. Our family tradition for the past few years has been to plant flowers in our backyard to celebrate this day. Part of our research on plants that attract butterflies will be put to good use as we shop at our local garden shop. Looking forward to planting some great flowers this weekend and then watching to see what we’re able to attract to our little garden in the back yard.