Beautiful Butterflies

Caterpillars, moths, cocoons, butterflies and chrysalises -- today we celebrated the wonder that is the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly or moth.

Here are the books we shared :

I took the tried and ever so true song/fingerplay "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and tweaked it for today's theme :
The itsy bitsy caterpillar
Crawled upon a leaf
She munched on some milkweed
Just like it was roast beef (yum!)
Curled into a chrysalis ... (snore)
And when her time was through ...
Unfurled her wings
And into the sky she flew!
Your caterpillar is your wiggly index finger.
A leaf can be the palm of one hand.
Tuck your finger into a fist for the chrysalis.
To make the butterfly, hook your thumbs together and wiggle your fingers for the butterfly wings.

Our flannel story for today also involved chrysalises (we do love our Monarch butterflies in Minnesota).

This idea was purposefully stolen from the awesome Miss Mary Liberry who provided not only the artistic inspiration but the text for the rhyme as well :

Five little caterpillars and not one more,
One made a chrysallis (see??) and now there are four.

Four little caterpillars sitting on a tree
One made a chrysallis and now there are three ...

... big job to do ... now there are two
... basking in the sun ... now there's just one
... knew his work was almost done ... now there are none

BUT ...

One chrysallis opened up underneath the sun
Now there's a beautiful butterfly and that makes one!

... with the morning dew ... that makes two
... shade of the tree ... that makes three
... spreading her wings galore ... now there are four
... feeling so alive ... at last there are five


We concluded our Butterfly Storytime with a group re-telling of the familiar "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. I used a large caterpillar puppet (old Folkmanis stock) and the monarch butterfly puppet as well as flannel pieces for all the food Mr. Caterpillar ate.



Our handout for today was to encourage the "Play Together" aspect of ECRR2.
"The Very Hungry Caterpillar BINGO" game is something everyone can enjoy, so I sent home a sheet with BINGO cards as well as the images for drawing pieces to play the game. This BINGO game comes courtesy of articulation360 :



For at home use only -- please do not distribute outside of your home