Beautiful Butterflies

This post is filled with butterfly books, songs and activities!

The books "Waiting For Wings" and "Where Butterflies Grow"

The first two books that I would like to tell you about are Waiting For Wings by Lois Ehlert and Where Butterflies Grow by Joanne Ryder.  They both have beautiful pictures, and in my opinion are appropriate to read to pre-k, k, or 1st-graders.  Both books discuss the life cycle of the butterfly and introduce vocabulary that our students will find really interesting.

The books "From Caterpillar To Butterfly" and "A Monarch Butterfly's Life"

The second two books, From Caterpillar To Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and A Monarch Butterfly's Life by John Himmelman, are a little higher than pre-k - more appropriate for K, 1 and 2.  They still talk about the life cycle, but in a more factual, scientific manner.  I've used From Caterpillar To Butterfly when I've actually had the caterpillars in a jar in my room.  When I first started teaching, I was scared to get the Painted Lady Butterfly kit, but I assure you that it's really easy to use, and the kids love watching the process.

My pre-k kids still have problems with identifying numerals, so I used the song "Five Butterflies" by Tiana to have the children look at the number and go to drink from the "daffodil" when it was their turn, as well as showing the other students in the room the number on their butterfly.  The "daffodil" was made from a yellow tablecloth bought at a Party Store.  Here is the video if you'd like to see us doing the song:



Over the years, I've searched the internet for great songs about butterflies that my students could act out or move to in some way.  My favorite songs are:

"Butterfly Addition" by Miss Jenny (she also sings "Butterfly Subtraction")
"The Butterfly" by Dr. Jean (a really pretty fingerplay with nice movements)
"Beautiful Butterfly" by Jack Hartmann (a mellow butterfly song that's very factual - best for K and 1)
"Caterpillar" by Sharon Macdonald (a really cute story song - you can have the children use their index finger, starting at their shoe, and have the "caterpillar" crawl up to different parts of the body)
"Caterpillar's Story" by Dr. Jean (an adorable song that the kids can act out, sung to the tune of "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around")

Finally, here is an activity where the students match lowercase letters to uppercase letters.  The kids really liked this because the letters are on butterflies.  Because I had to fit so many letters and pictures on the page, this is done on legal size paper (8.5" x 14").
Alphabet Butterfly Matching

I want to make my posts as beneficial as possible.  I would appreciate it so much if you could tell me what your favorite things to see in posts are.  Do you like song lists?  Activities?  Book ideas?  Please let me know, because then I can try to include those things more often in my posts.  Thank you!