Recently, I had the opportunity to teach the grade 3s in our school while our wonderful Grade 3 teacher took the juniors to a sports tournament. After brainstorming ideas together, we came up with something quite terrific for reading, writing and art. See what you think :)Book: Butterfly Wishes, by Frank Glew (you can order his books online for $10) http://www.magicsuitcase.ca/detailed.cfm?product_number=111
taken from his website: Summary: The seasonal migration from Canada to Mexico is a wonder of the world all children should know. The story is fiction, but the facts are true. The story line is about Elzine, a Monarch Butterfly, discovering she has magic powers to grant wishes. Only if the wishes are for others do they come true. It delivers an altruistic message as well as creating a sense of place for students. )
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| hot glued open paper clip on back |
After reading the book, and doing some surfing, I came across some Calder butterflies... and thought this would be a good inspiration. After talking with our Grade 3 teacher, we got the final idea put together.
Simple outline of lesson:
1) Read book to class
2) Discussed wishes for others
3) Brainstormed wishes that would help others on Smartboard
4) Had them write out several wishes in their writers notebook... had them choose one for their butterfly. They wrote this out on a thin piece of bristol board which eventually would be rolled for the tongue of the butterfly.
5) Students made butterfly
Materials: Butterfly template, bristol board, orange and black crayons (or other colours as you wish), old fashioned wooden clothespins, rhinestones for eyes (dollar store), black pipe cleaners, paperclips, plasticene (for flower base), paper plates, hot glue (teacher use only)
- On the paper plate, students made a plasticene flower (heavy, and the paperclip can be inserted into it to hold it up)
- Students colour wooden clothespins with black crayon
- pick rhinestone eyes (teacher to glue on along with piper cleaner antennae)
- students colour previously cut out wings on bristol board (had photocopied exact size for kids who might have trouble drawing this out... negative and positive space discussion)
- hot glue all together along with an open paper clip on back
- hot glue student wish (tongue) on butterfly (used a pencil to roll up the tongue)
- insert paperclip in flower base
Looks great!
Have fun with this... hope it was easy to follow...
Kids loved it, as did the Grade 3 teacher!
Cheers
Catherine:)
