Life Cycle of a Butterfly

On Monday, we received three caterpillars. We are very excited to watch them grow into butterflies. We are keeping butterfly journals, and watching them daily. They are starting to get fat. We think they're close to going into their chrysalis (the pupa), and we can't wait to see that. We've read several butterfly stories including, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Waiting for Wings." We have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. Today, we made butterflies, where we illustrated the four stages of the butterfly's life cycle. They are really cute!

Some of the students holding up their life cycle butterflies









A close up of a few of the life cycle butterflies

Butterfly Addition Plus A Field Trip

First, we practiced with a butterfly addition worksheet. It had stars, hearts, diamonds, etc. on each wing. The students had to add up the amount on each wing and write the answer to the addition problems. Then, we cut out our own butterflies, and we colored them with markers. Then, we put star stickers on each of the wings to make an addition problem. The students chose the number of stickers and wrote the addition problem for their own butterflies. Of course, they had to solve the problem by adding up the amount of stars on each wing. They are great at addition. I am so proud of them. :-) The butterflies look really great in the hallway.
Today, we went on a field trip to see a play called, "House at Pooh Corner." It was about Winnie the Pooh and all of his friends. The kids loved it! It was a wonderful play. When we came back, we wrote about our favorite character from the play in our journals. The majority of the class loved Piglet and Tigger. :-)

Holding up their addition butterflies








A close-up of one of the butterflies:

Ready to go! We love riding on the bus on our field trips!





With Mrs. B



Posing in front of the Topeka Performing Arts Center where we saw the play


A few of the friends waiting for the play to begin (no flash photography during the play)

Class Picture Day Preview

Today was class picture day. Of course, we don't have the professional pictures back yet. However, I did get a few class pictures taken of them in their nice clothes before recess. So here is a preview of your child's upcoming class picture:


I promise/hope I look better in the "actual" class picture - I look a little flustered during this picture - hmmm.......maybe trying to get 19 kids to smile and look at the camera at the same time. I liked it better when the professional photographer took the picture - he has the good tricks up his sleeve :-)

Happy Spring Break!!!!

Our Fourth Lasso Party!

We earned a lasso party for filling our spirit stick with lassos. The students earn lassos for being ready, respectful, and/or responsible. They can earn them as a class or individually. Once they have a earned a lasso, they place it on the spirit stick. We carry this spirit stick with us throughout the school. This way we can display our good behavior and earn our lassos too. They often earn lots of lassos at lunch and at their specials. When our stick is completely filled, we earn a party. I am always so proud of them, when they fill a spirit stick. We have earned four lasso parties now! We always vote on the treat, and the students voted on having popsicles for this lasso party. I decided to choose a warm day, so we could eat the popsicles outside at our school's picnic tables. After we ate the popsicles, I let the students play on the "big kids" equipment. They play on a smaller playground at recess, so this was a special treat. They had a lot of fun, and it was a well-deserved party! :-) Now, they are motivated to fill that stick quickly because they want to earn a fifth, final party before school ends. I think they can do it.

Notice the popsicles are jolly rancher flavored - very yummy! :-)





Our para Miss Campos is in this picture:

Our para Miss B with N

Even I enjoyed a popsicle - Here I am posing with A:

They do not get to play on the swings at recesses so this was a big treat:




They also liked climbing on the "big kids" equipment:



These monkey bars were HUGE compared to them, but they were up to the challenge!

The "big kids" have some cool stuff to play on: