Our last Science unit of the year was insects!
No insect unit is complete without reading some Eric Carle books. Of course we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Quite Cricket, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Lonely Firefly, and The Grouchy Ladybug. After we watched the video, "Eric Carle: Picture Writer", the kiddos wanted to make their own caterpillar pictures. (In this video, Eric Carle shows how he creates his tissue papers and then uses them to make the pictures for his books.) We didn't use paint like Eric Carle, but the students did color on their papers to add different texture, and then they cut out the shapes they would use to create their caterpillar.
We also learned about camouflage and read the book, How to Hide a Butterfly & Other Insects.
I gave each student a butterfly cut from different colored construction and they had to go around the room and find somewhere their butterfly would be camouflaged.
During our interactive writing time, we wrote about what we learned about insects. Then the students chose what insect they wanted to make and created it out of construction paper.
And the favorite insect activity of all is of course watching our caterpillars turn into butterflies! During our butterfly release, this little guy did not want to leave his flower!
