Insects!

We spent the last two weeks learning about insects!

It was definitely a favorite of the year so far!

I ordered caterpillar and ladybug larvae from Insect Lore.

They shipped quickly and 4 out of five caterpillars are currently in their cocoons!

(I'm hoping they haven't emerged yet during the long weekend!)

The kids have really enjoyed this project. They run in the classroom every morning to see the caterpillars and what stage they are in.

We did so many great projects about insects. Here's a few activities and pictures that I took. 

Check out my Insect & Butterfly Life Cycle Unit Plan on TPT and teachers Notebook. 

I included the links at the bottom!

Caterpillar Larvae Day #1

Caterpillars after a few days

Chrysalis Stage

These are the Journal pages from my Butterfly Life Cycle Unit.

We tried to do one journal a week to keep track of the changes we observed.

This project is a kid made butterfly life cycle book.

Write a sentence and draw a pictures for each stage.

(Also available in my butterfly life cycle unit)

This was the first page after the introduction to insects.

We learned about bees and ants and filled out the nonfiction writing pages.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

After reading 'Diary of a Fly" we made our own insect diary.

These were so creative and interesting.

I loved seeing the things the children made up for their insects. 

Also the dates they chose were funny :)

If you are interested in purchasing this unit plan they are available in three forms:

1. Insect Unit: TPT

2. Butterfly Life Cycle Unit: TPT

3. Combo Pack: TPT

(Just click on the TPT link to be brought right to the products!)

This is a project I have been working on. I am designing activities to align with each of the standards. This is the first one I've made so far, so keep your eyes peeled for the rest to come this summer :)

TPT: Common Core

A perfect project for the end of the year!

Also includes covers for first and second grade.

TPT: Memory Book

All of these units are also available in my Teacher's Notebook shop:

Teacher's Notebook

Planting A Rainbow

Spring is here!

The weather is beautiful here and we are certainly taking advantage of it!

This past week we learned all about planting.

We are keeping a journal of our plants as they grow as well. It was such a beautiful day that we took our flower pots outside and planted on our picnic table. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it. Check out these pictures from my unit plan.

This is the observation journal we are keeping over the next few weeks. The kids had to make a prediction of what their flower will look like when it blooms. I don't have a picture of the observation page, but the kids write the date, measure their plant, and then draw and write about what their plant looks like. It's really cool to see the progress over time.

We read the tiny seed by Eric Carle. The kids had to write about what happened to the seed during each season. This is a really great book to use when teaching planting.

Autumn: Blowing away in the wind.

Winter: It was snowing and the seeds were resting.

Spring: The seeds were growing.

Summer: The tiny seed grew into a big one.

This is our experiment to see what plants need in order to grow. We plant four bean seeds. We give one soil, water and light. Another gets no water. We put one in a brown paper bag so it gets no light. And then we wrapped the other bean in a wet piece of paper towel to see if it will grow with no soil. After doing the experiment children make their predictions of which will grow. After about a week, we go back and check which ones grew.

(We planted in the old cups from when we dyed eggs at easter-- love to recycle!)

Be sure to check out my unit plan for a lot of other great planting activities :)

Planting Unit TPT

Don't miss the big Sale on teachers pay teachers tomorrow!! Everything in my store will be 10% off, plus the additional sale from the website using their online code!

I also just started a page on Teachers Notebook so be sure to check out that link too. It's a great site!

My Teachers Notebook Shop