Theme Thursday: Butterfles in the Sky

With spring quickly turning into summer, this seemed like one of the last opportunities to do a proper butterfly story time. While I didn't have any cocooning caterpillars to show off, there are a bevy of great books and activities for the butterfly enthusiast in all of us.

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth

Song: Clap and Say Hello

Finger Play: 10 Little Fingers

Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Pop-Up Book by Eric Carle

Apparently Amazon doesn't have an entry for a plain old classic English language version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so you get a link to the pop-up version!

Song: There's a Small Caterpillar on a Leaf

There's a small caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle wiggle

There's a small caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle wiggle

There's a small caterpillar, there's a small caterpillar, there's a small caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle wiggle

There's a big caterpillar on a leaf, munch munch

There's a sleeping cocoon on a leaf, shh shh

There's a beautiful butterfly on a leaf, flutter flutter

Flannel: 5 Little Ducks

Song: Shake Your Sillies Out

Song: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Flannel: Go Away, Big Green Monster

Book: Butterfly Butterfly: A Book of Colorsby Petr Horacek

Song: Turn Around from Getting to know Myself

Make and Take Craft: Butterfly Pop-Up Cards

Supplies:

-Pop-up cards (prepared beforehand)

-Butterfly shapes (prepared beforehand)

-Crayons

-Glue sticks

Process: I introduced the craft before the Turn Around song and then distributed cards (I let the kids pick which color they wanted) and butterflies to individuals. Since this wasn't a glue heavy craft and since our glue sticks are running out very quickly, I placed 4 glue sticks on the table with the crayons for everyone to share. I made the rounds helping people figure out the correct way to glue the butterfly onto the pop-up piece of the card and then flapped the card at each kid a few times so it looked like their butterfly was flying.

This was one of our biggest groups for story time in a long time and for the first time ever, we used every single piece that I had prepared beforehand.

Time: Pop-up cards are one of my favorite programs to do with elementary students and I've gotten super good at preparing the actual card, so it probably took me less time than it would take someone just starting out. Prep took me about 40 minutes, including cutting out the individual butterfly shapes and the craft took about 25 minutes.

Check back next Tuesday for a tutorial on my down and dirty ways of prepping pop-up cards.