For the past five years, we've studied the butterfly life cycle in a preschool classroom, integrating elements of early language learning and creative curriculum studies. We buy the caterpillar eggs, observe and document the life cycle, and implement aspects of the study across the curriculum.
This year, I teach preschool at a private school that teaches Arabic and religion, so our study has dual language and spiritual development aspects. I decided to use this post as a (running)round-up of the tools and resources I gathered over the years.
This post includes affiliate links, links to products I have made, and links to products from teachers and educational content creators use and would happily endorse.
Supplies List:
- Butterfly Starter Kit or
- Live Caterpillar or
- Eggs
- Habitat
- Books about Butterflies
- Photos of butterflies
- Life Cycle Replica
- Butterfly models
- Stickers (eyes, butterflies), shapes, magnets,
- dual language resources
- Butterfly activities
- Pattern Blocks
- Construction paper
- tissue paper/ coffee filters
- yarn
- branches
- school glue/glue sticks
- markers
- googly eyes. eys
My go-to starter kit is the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Butterfly Kit.
It has five live caterpillars, a reusable netted habitat, and a STEM butterfly journal.
I recommend this kit because it comes with a stand for putting the lid on when you are ready to remove it from the container. The habitat is also a manageable size for little hands.
The stand allows for a gentle transition from container to habitat. Both the habitat and stand are reusable,
I've always got all five caterpillars alive when I've ordered this kit.
This year, my school ordered refill caterpillars for all of our early childhood classrooms.
Be sure to rinse your habitat after every study.
The kit came from the Nature Gift Store on Amazon.
The lining is easily removed, and you can use a paperclip or hook it to the netting of your habitat. It was a little too much fuss for my liking, but it got the job done,
Post a Comment