Chrysalis', Butterflies and Children's Book Week

As we celebrated Children's Book Week and waited for our chrysalis' to turn into butterflies,  we set a goal to see how many ways we could connect reading, science and art this week.  We had a lot of fun and a lot of great conversation.  We chose the non-fiction book It's a Butterfly Life by Irene Kelly to guide our thinking.  We read the book each day and each day new things caught our attention.  Here is what we focused on during our reading conversations:

Day One:  What new things can we discover about caterpillars, chrysalis' and butterflies?

Day Two:  What are some of the extraordinary things about caterpillars, chrysalis' and butterflies?

Day Three:  Did this new learning change any of our thinking about caterpillars, chrysalis' and butterflies?

Day Four:  How are reading and butterflies alike and how are they different?

We enjoyed conversation about these topics as we read and re-read the story.  Then we embarked on a few art and science projects to capture our thinking and learning.  

This is the first project, it is made with oil pastels:

We followed these directions to make this project.  We did it exactly as explained except one child chose to use purple instead of blue for the background. The shading takes quite a while so I explained the steps and then read and we engaged in our reading conversation as they worked, pausing to give the next set of instruction reminders when most were ready I printed the template larger for the oil pastel part of the project and smaller for the anatomy party.  We used this information plus what we read in the book for the anatomy labeling project.

Our second project was a bit more abstract.  We made a butterfly fact chain.  We began by water coloring card stock.  The brighter the colors the better.  As the paint dried, each child looked back over our conversation notes and chose their 5 favorite pieces of learning.  They then chose a solid color of paper and cut out 5 rectangles.  The smaller the rectangle, the more the finished project will look like a butterfly.  They then wrote one piece of learning on each butterfly and folded them back and forth like a fan.  To create the butterfly look, simply fold the folded fan in half.  Once the facts are complete, the students cut 5 rectangles from the water colored paper and followed the same folding process.  Then we stretch out white thread and tied on the watercolor and fact butterflies with yarn.  The finished projects are fun to look at and make great conversation starters as kids share which facts they chose to include and why.  It was a simple but fun project with a lot of room for great conversation.

As our week of thinking and learning came to an end we concluded that reading, art, and science all are beautiful because they help us think in new ways and share that thinking with others they all work together to give us deeper understanding and our learning would be incomplete with all three parts.  

Our final project was a joint piece of art inspired by these directions.  We just used painter's tape to mark off the word READ before we started.  We felt like it was a great way to tie together art, science, and reading and it was a lot of fun to make together.

We can't wait for our chrysalis' to turn to butterflies and we can't wait to see what new reading adventures next week will hold.

One of our favorite weeks of the year is Children's Book Week!  We make it a point to stop and have create conversations about our favorite books of the year as well as to explore some new books. This year we kicked our week off by making videos of our favorite book recommendations.  We used the ipad to record our videos and then used a free app call "videoshop" to edit them.  As you can see, everyone got in on the fun!  Here are our favorite recommendations from preschool, 2nd grade and 5th grade.  

Grace's Recommendation for 4th Grade and Up

Liberty's Recommendation for 1st Grade and Up

Hope's Recommendation for everyone!

Happy Children's Book Week, We hope you'll take time to celebrate great books and how much fun it is to read them together!

Inquiry, Art, and Caterpillars

Caterpillars have crawled all over our classroom and our imaginations this week.  Our annual butterfly hatching project was kicked into high gear with the arrival of our caterpillars.  Our first order of business was to OBSERVE.

This year we did inquiry based observation.  The students created a list of questions they had about their caterpillars and then set out to gather data.  Nearly everyone wanted to track their growth in an attempt to answer the question, "How big will they grow?"  We also have kids tracking color, changes in marking, and amount of movement.

This year we are using a simple student made data sheet so they can record exactly what is important to them.

Once our observations were underway, we moved to a bit of an intellectual art project.  Each child paints their toes, just the small round part, and then stands down on a piece of paper making the body of the caterpillar.  We used small paper plates with 4 possible colors for a group of 4 kids to share.  They painted with a paper towel and then washed off with another paper towel so the mess was a minimum.  While the paint dried we explored "Caterpillars" on the Britannica on-line data base.  I read aloud and showed pictures from the site and the kids recorded favorite facts below their painted caterpillars.  (This girl is a BIG fan of Eric Carle so you can tell her facts are seasoned with her own schema!).  By the time we finished with favorite facts their caterpillars were dry and they added in eyes, legs, and antennas.

As we read on-line we began to notice that a lot of what we thought we knew about a caterpillar's anatomy was incorrect.  This began a quest to discover what a caterpillar's body is actually like.  We read, From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and Caterpillars and Butterflies by Stephanie Turnbull.  As I read the kids took notes of the specific body parts mentioned and what was true about them.  We then spent some time observing our caterpillars with magnifying glasses and looking to identify these parts.  At the end of our time together the kids drew an "accurate" picture of a caterpillar's body under their facts.

We ended our week of inquiry and observation with the beloved The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and talked about fiction, non-fiction, and books that contain a bit of both.  We then painted rock caterpillars and enjoyed moving like caterpillars.  We can't wait to explore the pupa or chrysalis stage next!

Why POETRY is Worth Your Time

Poetry Response

Poetry is a fantastic way to engage readers of all ages and abilities.  In the above example kids used a quick 4 block page to record their thinking about a poem.  They jotted down their thoughts as we read the poem out loud and then they shared in pairs and with a group.  In this particular activity we practiced Mental Image- What picture pops in your head as you read? What words or specific parts of the poem help make your picture more vivid?  Connections-How does this poem remind you of other things you have read (text to text), things you already know or have experienced (text to self) or things you have seen or heard about in the world (text to world). Author's Purpose- based on your response to the poem, Why do you think the author wrote it?  Was the author striving to entertain readers, inform readers, persuade readers, or were they writing for another purpose entirely?  Asking Questions- As you enjoy this poem what questions do you have?  What does it make you wonder about?

Here a Four Fast Reasons we LOVE to read and think about poetry:

4.  Poetry is SO diverse!  There are all kinds of poems by a wide variety of authors about a wide variety of subjects making it fun and different.

3.  Poetry is quick!  Poems can be read out loud quickly and therefore leave lots of time for multiple readings and great conversations.

2.  Poetry is powerful!  By its very design poetry can send a big message with a few carefully chosen words.  That makes it an excellent genre to both think about meaning and practice our own word choice.  It also gives a voice to readers not looking for a long text or working hard to gain confidence.  

1.  Poetry is fun!  Poetry in all its various forms can paint a picture that is fun to read and we all know it is worthwhile to read fun or funny pieces for the pure enjoyment of it.

Here are 4 of our favorite poetry books:

A Kick in the Head by Paul B. Janeczko

Castles:  Old Stone Poems by Rebecca Dotlich

Sky Magic by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Thunderboom by Charlotte Pomerantz

Whether you are looking for a quick read to enjoy together, or a well written piece of writing to teach word choice or thinking strategies, poetry is most definitely worth your time!