A Butterfly Lap Book

Twinkle Toes has been talking about Butterflies since our Caterpillar/Cocoon/Butterfly Holy Week Project.

I decided to take her interest a step further and have her make a lap book on Butterflies! She was very excited!

We began by reading a couple of our books:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne

Today we picked up the following additional books about butterfly's from the library--OH! It is SO NICE to have our library's open again!-- to read during the next couple weeks:

The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco
Butterfly House

From Caterpillar to Butterfly
Where Butterflies Grow
Monarch Butterfly
Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk out of China

She began her lap book by coloring a picture for the cover... Like usual, Chiquita wanted to color one too!

Next she practiced writing the letters C for Caterpillar, and B for Butterfly, and then made alphabet mini books for those 2 letters.

After that she recited her numbers and then worked on practicing number placement for numbers 1-9 in addition to reviewing her colors using a Caterpillar Circles and Colors Activity. She then colored a beautiful Letter B for Butterfly. These were both added to the lap book next to the corresponding mini-books.

Next we discussed, and put together a mini-book, on the life cycle of the butterfly that I found over at Enchanted Learning. Note: This printout requires membership. If you don't happen to have a member ship at Enchanted Learning, there are still lots of free printables available from them. I just love this site! I reduced the book to 70% before printing.

I also printed out the Painted Lady Butterfly Life Cycle Sequencing Cards which she colored and put in order. We then made an envelope for them inside the lap book.

For copy work, she copied--currently I create a word document, with the letters in light gray, for her to trace--the following poem from one of our favorite books, Favorite Poems Old and New:

Caterpillar
by Christina Rossetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.

We had some extra room on one side, so we added a Caterpillar that she colored, and then she learned about symmetry through the use of finger paint!

Painted Symmetrical Butterfly

Fold a piece of construction paper in half and cut out a butterfly shape. Open it up and allow the student to dab different colors of paint on one side. Fold the butterfly back up and smooth it down with the palm of the hand. Open it up and you have a symmetrical butterfly.

For the Back of the lap book, and to tie in our Easter butterfly, I printed out a Butterfly Dot-to-dot followed by, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

I made a list of possible activities for the girls to do:

• Any of these Caterpillar Crafts
  
• Put together a Butterfly Puzzle
  
• Play Butterfly Go Fish
• Watch Signing Time! Volume 8: The Great Outdoors and review the signs for Caterpillar & Butterfly
  
• Online Butterfly Puzzle
  
• Play Butterfly Dominoes
• Butterfly Color-by-Number
• Color a Butterfly Online
  
• Any of these coloring pages
  
• Make an Origami Butterfly
  

We have only done a few of these so far... I hope to do a few more of them the rest of the week.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of her completed lap book:





Before I go, has anyone ever had a Butterfly Garden or made your own? It sounds so neat! I'd also love to hear any suggestions you have on any other Butterfly themed picture books!