Blogging About Butterflies and Saint Patrick's Day In A Kindergarten Classroom

I wish I could start out this post by saying to those of you that read my post on Monday that I have fully recovered from the effects of daylight savings time and that nothing out of the ordinary happened today. Unfortunately, I can't.

Wednesday is Chapel Day at my school.  I set out with my class following behind me like little ducklings to take our seats on our assigned pews. Our P.E. coach gave a great lesson to our lower school classes and we went back to the classroom. The teacher assistant next door asked me when we got back if I realized that I was wearing my sweater  inside out. Sure I did. I love wearing a sweater inside out in front of over two hundred students, my colleagues, and visiting parents. I asked her why she hadn't told me BEFORE Chapel. She told me that she hadn't noticed it until she was sitting in a pew behind me. I refuse to acknowledge that I would do anything as silly as to pull my sweater  on inside out in the dark if it weren't for daylight savings time.

Moving on, we have begun a great unit on butterflies. We talked about the life cycle of the butterfly, read books like "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, and made tissue paper butterflies. We even  painted some that are now mysteriously crawling up our walls! Eventually, they will be mysteriously ensconced in brown craft paper so that they resemble cocoons. (Two years ago a teacher assistant came in to ask why we had sausages  hanging from the ceiling.) Eventually, a butterfly will "emerge" from these cocoons. Last year, I kid you not, a little girl was diligently working at her seat when one of the emerging butterflies emerged just a bit too much and fell out on top of her head. The child sitting beside her exclaimed with delight "Look! One hatched!"

We even ordered our own Monarch butterfly larvae from Carolina Biological Supply. Five larvae were shipped to us in a clear 8 oz. rearing chamber with food. The larvae pupate and will emerge as adults in about thirty days. This is what they looked like when they arrived.

They are getting really big and the children are fascinated by their development. This is what they look like now.

After reading the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we created our own out of tissue paper with a water and glue glaze.

Since today is St. Patrick's Day, we couldn't go without a little luck of the Irish to finish out our day. We had cookies,

read stories, and graphed Lucky Charms cereal. This is one of my terrific parent volunteers, Mrs. Rice,  helping the children as they complete the graphs. The child pictured is her daughter Suzie. Is Suzie not the cutest thing? Happy Saint Patrick's Day to you all!