Nature Camp Day 3: Butterflies

6/11/2014

Our day began with making our snack a little early, since it needed a chance to freeze. The children called it, "Butterfly Nectar" and it consists of orange juice (freshly squeezed by the children in this case), crushed pineapple and mashed banana (also mashed by the children) combined together into a frozen smoothie/slushie/popsicle kind of treat.

While our Butterfly nectar was in the freezer, we read a lovely poem about caterpillars and butterflies from the book Outside Your Window. Then we moved into talking about the life cycle and body parts of the butterfly. The children were fascinated by the fact that Ants and Butterflies both go through a metamorphosis and that they both have antennae, a head, thorax and abdomen. The main difference (appearance aside) is that butterflies are more solitary, while ants live in community colonies. Also, butterflies have a cool tongue called a proboscis that helps them to sip nectar from the flowers like a straw. Butterflies also smell with their feet (this was particularly silly sounding!).

We had three indoor art projects today. The first was to create a butterfly window hanging using contact paper and tissue paper.

We used coffee filters and food coloring to create tie dye butterflies. And with some finishing touches, will look just like them!

The oldest girls were interested in creating another art project where we made the life cycle of the butterfly on a plate using pasta (and a bean) for each part. A white bean for the egg, spiral pasta for the caterpillar, a shell for the chrysalis and a bowtie for the butterfly.

The toddlers enjoyed drawing on coffee filters to make butterflies, reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and other books, dancing like butterflies, and exploring in the sensory bin.

Soon, it was time to go out and play in the garden. We had fun with bubbles, making mud pies, playing in the sand, and of course playing with shaving cream and water.