Thursday, May 28, 2009

Fluttery Butterflies!


The boys and I are doing butterfly stuff all this week in school. It's nothing super fancy or academically amazing -- just fun stuff. I've found my boys enjoy crafts more when they're really simple, unlike my girls, who were into more advanced projects at this age. The easier it is for the boys, the more fun they seem to have. I went through my craft books and found a few easy projects. Then I dug through our bookshelves and found some simple picture books about butterflies. Like I said -- nothing elaborate -- but just enough to keep it fun and interesting.

The other day we read The Lamb and the Butterfly by Arnold Sundgaard. It's illustrated by Eric Carle, whose work my kids have always enjoyed. It's a story about a lamb who meets a butterfly and is curious about the differences in lifestyles. The lamb lives close to her mother, but the butterfly lives alone and all over the place. It's a cute book. My girls got it from a book club back in the 1990s when they went to private school.

Yesterday we made stained-glass butterflies with construction paper, wax paper, and melted crayons. They turned out really cute and looked cool when we hung them on the glass door and the sun shone through. Here is a picture of them below. I don't remember what we're going to do today for a craft project, but I know it's a butterfly. We'll be reading a book about how caterpillars turn into butterflies today, so that will be fun. It's nothing the boys don't know already, but since it's near the end of the school year, we're trying to keep things simple. We were in Glacier NP last weekend when a tiger swallowtail landed right on Nathan's shoulder. I had my camera, but I wasn't fast enough. Tis the season for butterflies -- flutter, flutter!

9 comments:

  1. The kids' stained glass butterflies are beautiful!! What a fun way to end the school year! (When do you end the school year, Rena? How does a homeschooler decide that? Is it flexible?)

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  2. Thanks, Kelly. We're ending the same day as the public schools here, which is on the 12th. Montana requires a certain amount of hours per year, which is basically the same as the typical 180 days, so that's what I use as a guide. It's totally flexible, which makes it great, especially if we want to take an early trip or something. :)

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  3. Beautiful butterflies! I love projects like that - we used to do them with the kids.

    I'll have to do a couple posts about some of my favorites.

    Cool post.

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  4. Ooooooo, that looks like just the sort of project I'd like to do. Beautiful butterflies. We've seen some swallowtails, sulphurs and white ones in our yard.

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  5. Neat butterflies. The boys did a great job. :)

    And I love the anecdote about the swallowtail landing on Nathan. Too bad it didn't stick around long enough for a photo op!

    Gale

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  6. awesome butterflys!

    Last year I ordered one of those butterfly kits where you can watch the caterpilars turn into butterflys. It was so neat!

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  7. Cool butterflies, they did a great job! The book looks really cute too!

    Nancy

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  8. From one homeschooling mom to another, thanx for my next project! ;)

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  9. Great butterflies Rena! It is amazing how distinctive Eric Carle's art is - when I saw the title picture I immediately thought of him! Before I even read it was him. lol He has a museum in Massachucettes but we did not get to it this time - another reason we will be going back!

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