Butterflies and Crazy Hats.. A Room 11 Update!

The children have been super excited about our butterfly unit.  As you could see from the previous posts, last week, the children watched all 14 of our caterpillars change into chrysalids.  According to our resident butterfly expert, Miss Costello, the painted lady butterflies should start to emerge from their chrysalids.

We will be keeping the butterflies in the large mesh tents so that the children will be able to observe the life cycle begin all over again!  We will be observing the butterflies body parts and watching how they drink the nectar from flowering plants.  Once we have had some time to watch the butterflies in our classroom, we will place the butterflies in the greenhouse at Beal. 

In order to really observe the behaviors of the butterflies, we need a flowering plant.  We would love donations of flowering "nectar" potted plants (3-7 inch pots) for the butterflies.  Purple Salvia, all Daisies, Lantana, Verbena, and Marigold are all good "nectar" plants. We also need a donation of a larval plant for the butterflies to lay their eggs.   Jungle Jim's in West Boylston has larval plants for the new eggs.  We would love donations of Holly Hock or Mallow plants.  Finally, we would love some donations of oranges to put in the tent for the adult butterflies to feed on!

On another note, WEDNESDAY 5/25 is CRAZY HAT DAY at Beal.  Please send your child to school with any crazy hat to wear for the day!  This is part of our spirit days called Wacky Wednesdays.  Each Wednesday we will be doing something different to show our school spirit. Stay tuned to see what we will do for next Wednesday!

Blog Makeover

Hey everyone!

So I decided to give my blog a makeover.  I wish I knew how to create my own backgrounds and header, but I am not there yet!  Therefore, I went over to Dotty Dot Dot and used one of their free backgrounds and header.  So what do you think? Please leave your comments because I would love to have some feedback. Also, if you are someone who knows how to create backgrounds and headers and have some good tips for me, I would love some help! I hope everyone enjoys! Let me know :)

Reader's Theater is back..

Sorry for the delay of these plays.  I just realized how to upload the file. I hope they work! Enjoy.
The first one is called The Giant Jumparee, followed by The Three Silly Goats Gruff.

Take a peek at how amazing their fluency is!

There are chrysalis's everywhere!

I couldn't hold in my excitement.  When I walked into my room this morning, I ran over to the butterfly tent to see what had happened. To my delight, the top of the tent was filled with hanging chrysalis's.  I have never seen such a sight.  As the kids arrived they too were super excited. Take a look at what we walked into!

Our Very Hungry Caterpillars

Sorry it has been so long since my last blog! The end of the year is such a crazy time with all sorts of meetings.  I am back and will be updated my blog frequently as promised. Enjoy!


The time has come for all the Kindergarten teachers at Beal to raise caterpillars.  When I became a Kindergarten teacher this year, this butterfly unit was certainly one thing I was super excited about.  Raising caterpillars provides for a very hands-on approach to learning about the life cycle of a butterfly.  As I continue to teach, I continue to learn.  There are many days when my kids ask me a question and I don't know.  That gives me a chance to show kids how to retrieve information from many different sources and that it is OK if they don't know every little thing, because even teachers learn something new everyday.  I am very lucky however because one of my fellow Kindergarten teachers is a butterfly EXPERT.  If my kids have a question that I cannot answer, they have been writing letters to Mrs. Costello, our resident expert.  She loves this and it is great writing practice for my kids.  So we received our painted lady caterpillars.  They were teeny weeny when they first arrive.  From reading many non-fiction books about butterflies, we already knew that the caterpillars have gone through there first stage of life, the egg stage.  They arrived in our classroom in the larvae stage.  As we all know, they ate and ate and ate.  I took 14 caterpillars.  I put 4 on the Holly Hock plant and then left the rest in their food cups.  For two weeks they have been eating and boy are they getting fat! Here are some pictures from our classroom

When I left the caterpillars on Friday, all fourteen were still alive and as plump as could be.  One of them was in their J positions and the others were on their way up to begin to make their button.  I can't wait to see what will be there when I go into school tomorrow. The kids have been making observations this past week in their Butterfly Journals.  I can't wait to see their expression when they see the caterpillars have formed their chrysalis's.  Stay tuned for more pictures on Monday.  I will also be sharing some of our caterpillar and butterfly resources.  Don't forget to comment and also become a follower.

Morning Math 3

Here is my next morning math! I have also included a modified version to meet the needs of all your students.  I hope you find these helpful!  Enjoy.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! Give your selves a pat on the back for all of the hard work you do to make a difference in the lives of a child!

Morning Math 3

Morning Math 3 Modified

The Lion's Dinner

As promised, here is another reader's theater play.  This one is called The Lion's Dinner.  Try and notice how each of them changed their voice to sound more like their character.  Their fluency gets better and better each day.  Enjoy another fantastic performance!

Teachers Appreciation Day Sale

As I was reading through my blog roll, I came across this great idea.  A bunch of teachers, who have stores on Teachers Pay Teachers, have decided to have a ONE DAY only sale for Teachers Appreciation Day.  This sale gives you 20% of any of the participating teachers stuff.  Click her website header below

to link over to her page for more information!  Thanks for putting on such a great sale! 

 

-Miss Zakar