HUGE (and I mean HUGE) day for first graders!

Have you been hearing about butterflies and moths at home?  Such a silly question I'm sure, because that is the big news at school this week!  We have been learning about the characteristics of butterflies, moths and both for about a week now.  On Wednesday, we used our prior knowledge about their characteristics to create a 'real' Venn Diagram and then the kids did the same thing on their own Venn Diagrams!

The children then used their Venn Diagrams to write a sentence about butterflies, a sentence about moths, and one about both. Finally, they drew and labeled the life cycle of a butterfly or moth.

Today our REAL Monarch caterpillars arrived in the mail!  The excitement was contagious! We began by getting an up close and personal view of our baby caterpillars.  We used magnifying glasses to see the detail because they are just babies.  

We then recorded our observations in a journal, which we will continue every few days to record the transformation from caterpillars to bigger caterpillars, to chrysalis' and finally to butterflies! This process will take two or more weeks to complete.

Here are some other pictures you may find interesting about our day!  This is my very favorite Science unit to teach and many past students feel the same! It is exciting and REAL! Hopefully all six of our baby Monarch caterpillars will survive the life cycle.  Be certain to check the blog weekly as our new classroom additions change and grow and transform!