Teaching About Life Cycles of Frogs, Butterflies, Plants, and More

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Frogs

Child's Place has a sequence of black and white drawings of the life cycle of a frog for your use in whatever lesson you have planned.

Butterflies

Sewing School used pieces of pasta to put together a clever life cycle visual.

This easy life cycle paper craft is such an interesting way to teach each stage of a butterfly's life.

The Crafty Classroom shares step by step instructions for making stamps to represent each stage of the life cycle.

Along the Way used pom poms to create a colorful life cycle display.

Cards, Crafts, and Kids Projects  created a 3D butterfly collage included each stage of the life cycle.

Mama Jenn made different butterfly crafts for each stage of the life cycle.

General

Joel's On has links for life cycle activities for many different plants and animals.


The Wonder Years used cardstock to put together a life cycle learning tool.

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Penguins: Rhymes, Writing, Books, Counting & Crafts

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Primary Perspective has cute and clever penguin ideas. I love the writing activity with the adorable cut paper penguin accents.

Frogs Bees & Under the Seas has a wonderful free penguin unit to share. The entire unit is available for download.

Mrs Jump's Class has also put together a FANTASTIC multi-subject penguin unit

This is a cute penguin poem from Teaching in High Heels.
A Place to Share is offering you a penguin fact and opinion activity download.

ABC's of Jess' House has a few different penguin posts that you will enjoy checking out. The handprint baby penguins they put together are a creative addition to a penguin study. Jess also says, "While we where learning about the skin of the penguin I had them feel and color with wax. Then we painted water color over to see how the water repels to protect the penguin from cold and water . You can also float the wax as penguins kind of float. We also compared size of the kids to a penguin. Adult penguins grow to be about 4 feet tall, which is close in size to the average preschooler. "

The Diary of a Nouveau Soccer Mom has posted a short list of penguin themed books, as well as a toliet paper penguin craft.

Arts and Crofts snuck in a geometry lesson while making these penguin pals.

The Adventures of Bear played penguins with a counting rhyme. They also used the book A Penguin Story as inspiration for a fun craft.

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Animals in the Snow

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The Adventures of Bear did a fatty experiment to understand how it is that polar bears can survive in such extreme cold.

Preschool, What Fun We Have has another variation on the experiment shown above. How do animals stay warm in the winter?

Whimsical Ways created a sorting and graphing activity using animal that like and dislike the snow.

Playing by the Book has a textured winter animal picture craft to go along with the book Polly and the North Star.

2 Teaching Mommies put together an activity sheet for making obsevations about snow.

Fun4Kids has an amazing post all about Animals in the Winter. There is a list of great books included, as well as rhymes and finger plays. You will also find a collage activity demonstrating animals in the winter and a super cute cardboard box bear cave. The textured polar bear craft is so fun too!

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Bats & Spiders

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Today we are taking a look at the Creepy, Crawly side of October!

Mama Jenn sent us a submission for making Bottle Top Spiders.

Try one of the simple games on BarrBunch.com.

In Grab and Go there are several versions of alphabet recognition games suitable for a range of themes. For Halloween try the Bats Uppercase, Bats Lowercase, or Blank Bat Cards so you can make the game fit what you're studying. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for an explanation on how to use the cards.

They also have a Bat and Candy version of their Toss Games, directions at the bottom of the page.


Typically they're creepy, but From the Hive gave these bats and spiders a cute twist!


Sarah's Tot School took on a Spidery twist. Check out her day full of spider activities, centered around a crawly little friend and the book The Very Busy Spider.


Do your superheroes and princesses ever Go Batty? These little ones did! Christy offers 2 great book suggestions and a fabulous looking chocolate bat treat.


Teaching Two made eye catching spider webs with black felt and glitter.


This doodle rubbing idea from This Little Project would be a fun way to design a spooky spider web.


Practice fine motor skills with Dalle un Colino's Spider and Web maze activity.

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On the Farm: Baby Animals

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Today Wondertime Wednesday heads to the farm!

Springtime is a natural time to study and visit a farm. After being inside all winter, it's fun to take learning outside and seeing all the baby animals and the first plants of the season are fun and exciting ways to learn about a variety of subjects. This post is a companion piece to all the wonderful gardening activities shared last week so be sure you check those out too.

Thank you to everyone who shared a great idea, don't forget there is still time to send us an activity submission and be entered into our Dr. Sears book giveaway! Come back tomorrow to see the winners and find out about our big plans for the summer!

Michelle and her daughter experimented with negative space painting while learning about farm animals.Thinking of focusing on pigs during your farm stay?
Check out Denise's fun Pig Poetry Chart and activity.
Objective: develop concepts of print; count groups of objects to five.
They also demonstrated the designing of a fun farm scene using stickers.
Joann submitted a link full of resources related to planning a farm animals unit. She has a ton of good ideas so be sure to check them out, we like how they sorted plastic farm animals.
Keri at The Home Teacher put together an on the farm quiet kit and an add on activity. The kit includes lacing cards, memory cards, I Spy game, books, puppets and more. What a fantastic resource.
Thanks to Julie at The Girl who Painted Trees for pointing us toward Can Teach and their collection of Farm poems and songs.
Lovin' the adorable, 3D sheep Jolanthe crafted with her kids.

Denise submitted a great group of down on the farm fun!
Who Was in the Barn? Poem Chart
Objective: developing concepts of print; practice farm animal names and sounds
Feed the Chicks Counting Game
Objective: develop number concepts
Wishy Washy Day
Objective: dramatize familiar stories & have fun!Katie at Katie's Nesting Spot is getting ready for a farm field trip with a variety of activities like animal sounds patterns, habitat sort, and pennies for piggies.

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Caterpillars and Butterflies

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This week's Wondertime Wednesday focuses on the life cycle of a butterfly. Thanks for all the fun submissions for this post!


Michelle @ Her Cup Overfloweth made a colorful construction paper caterpillar.

CoCo Cake Cupcakes made a caterpillar sweet enough to eat!

The Masked Mommy made a very clever Very Hungry Caterpillar snack.

Miller Moments made their own painted version of a beautiful butterfly.

Letters Numbers and Books Oh My posted all about Butterfly Bb Day.

Adventures of a Flake explains how to make coffee filter butterflies.

Two different version of coffee filter and clothespins butterflies were made by Katie from Katie's Nesting Spot's daughter in preschool. The first one was made with a paints applied with an eye dropper, a great way to work on fine motor practice, and the second was made with Dot painters.

Meninheira submitted a fun post with pictures of Spring activities. A butterfly would be a fun addition to the floral dioramas and would teach your child a bit about habitats. It might also be fun to put the pupa stage into this type of visual.

4 Crazy Kings shares a cute suggestion for recycling artwork to make a handprint butterfly.

Casa Camacho is featuring 3D butterfly creations.

Totally lovin' the Eric Carle colors in Deep Space Sparkle's illustrator inspired butterflies.

From the looks of our submissions, The Very Hungry Caterpillar seems to be the book of choice for teaching children about the life cycle of a butterfly. Let us know what other books you have read/enjoyed that also teach about butterflies!

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