Welcome to our Butterfly Blog!

Welcome to our Butterfly Blog!  When we use this blog we are going to be plunging into learning about butterflies.  When you try to make your way through this blog, use the blog archive to view the posts the way they are intended to be viewed.  Have fun!

Before you start, print out this KWL and fill out what you know about butterflies already.  Fill out what you want to know also on the organizer.  We will come back to this later to fill out the last part, what you have learned. 

http://www.teach-nology.com/cgi-bin/kwl.cgi

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Every living thing has a life cycle.  The stages that an animal or person goes through during their life is called a life cycle.

Watch these videos and read the lyrics to the song to help figure out the stages in the Butterfly life cycle.  The song is the third song down on the website.  It is called, "Butterfly Cycle."

Monarch caterpillar hatching from egg


Monarch caterpillar forming chrysalis


Monarch butterfly metamorphosis


http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems26.html


After you are done watching the videos and looking at the song, go to this website and take the interactive quiz. Don't forget to check your answers!


Life Cycle Quiz

Parts of a Butterfly

You are now going to learn the different parts of a butterfly and what each part does for the butterfly.  Research the following pages and then fill out the worksheet to label and define the job of each part. 


http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jmresources/butbodyparts/bginform.html


http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/label/butterfly.shtml


When you have completed this, go to the following website and you can create your own butterfly!  It is called Butterfly Discovery.  You can pick your butterflies body, wing shape, and wing pattern.  You can also name your butterfly and tell us where it lives.  Print it so you can share with the whole class or save it and post it on the blog!


http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflies/game/game.htm

Narrative vs. Expository Writing

There are so many different types of writing, but the two we are going to focus on right now are Narrative and Expository.

The main purpose of narrative writing is to describe an experience, event or sequence of events in the form of a story.  An example of a narrative writing about Butterflies would be the book Charlie the Caterpillar by Dom Deluise.

This is a summary that Amazon has on their website.  "As Charlie the Caterpillar meets one group of animals after another playing together and having fun, he asks if he can join in. But each time he's told not welcome -- because he's ugly. As winter approaches, Charlie spins himself a cocoon. When spring arrives, the cocoon opens and out comes Charlie -- now a beautiful butterfly. Everyone wants him to be part of their group. But Charlie puts these fair-weather friends properly in their place in this heartwarming story about the meaning of true friendship."

The main purpose of expository writing is to give the reader information, and explain or describe something to the reader.  An example of a expository writing about Butterflies would be the book The Life Cycles of Butterflies: From Egg to Maturity, a Visual Guide to 23 Common Garden Butterflies.

Accomplishing exactly what its title promises, this book describes in text and photos the butterflies that commonly visit gardens in the eastern states.

Write your own!

After all of our research on butterflies, now its your turn to show me what you learned!  Before you do anything else, go back to your KWL and fill in the what you learned part.  After you are done with that, your job is to write a narrative story that includes a butterfly.  It must also incorporate 4 facts that you learned about butterflies earlier in our blog.


Good Luck and Enjoy!