Butterfly Unit Study & Lap Book

Our Earth day inspired project focused on helping local Monarch butterflies. If you haven't seen all the fun and learning we have been having then please go and check out Our Save the Monarchs posts and Pinterest board.

Miss K wanted to know more about all the local butterflies not just the Monarchs. All her reading and observations culminated into a colorful lap book.

The final product contains the printables from two free lap book as well as some of our own mini books.

Free Butterfly Mini Helper lap book by Home school bits

Butterfly Lap book from Home school Share

Title Page

We had just finished with a Hans Christian Andersen unit so Miss K added this quote from 'The Butterfly' to her title page.

The Lifespan tri-fold book was for Miss K to record the number days 6 different species spend in each stage of their life cycle. The Host plant flap book listed 20 different plants and the Caterpillars that use them as food sources.

Life cycle, Host Plants, Life span

Anatomy, Anatomy Glossary

The Anatomy of the Butterfly had us all amazed. Miss K would have happily spent several weeks learning about each species. A trip to Butterfly house got everyone even more excited!

Butterfly feeding

Butterfly or Moth, Wingspan, Texas Butterfly species.

Miss K is on the look out now for a pocket Butterfly Identification guide (and a flower guide...and one for trees). At the moment I am trying to decide between the Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies: Take Along Guide for younger kids or get one that will be good for years to come like the Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths.

Mini Piwi had a week of Butterflies too!

Preschool Butterfly science and Food art

We have been seeing a lot of Monarchs and Painted Ladies in the park this week. What Butterflies have you noticed near you?

Hans Christian Anderson Unit Study & Lapbook (Free download)

Source for book title Image

The theme for the Second month of the Poppin's Book Nook is Wizards!  Our "Magical' book this month was 'The Perfect Wizard' by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Dennis Nolan. 

This whimsical picture book is a biography of story telling Wizard, Hans Christian Andersen. It introduces us to a young, awkward and eccentric Hans and describes how he overcomes the odds to become one of the best known children's fairy tale authors. Small excepts from his stories throughout the book cleverly highlights how much of his inspiration was drawn from his own experiences. Dennis Nolan's beautiful illustrations are whimsical and dream like. To see them for your selves you can click on the book cover to see inside the book on Amazon (affiliate link).

Miss K and I read the book together because it does contain some themes that she would have questions about. (eg.Losing loved ones, Mental health and Poverty). This book is full of life lessons like not giving up and believing in your dreams. I am still surprised the library wasn't keeping it for their collection!

I had planned a craft to go with this book. However, after reading the book, Miss K  read some of the other fairy tales quoted in the book. Our project become a Lap book and Unit study. The Mini books I made for the Lap book focused on five topics. I have included the links do you can download them too.

1. Timeline: We used the picture book to create a Time line for many of the Major events in Hans Christian Andersen's life. Download time line 

2. Paper Art: To amuse his audience Han Christian Anderson made his 'Paper cuts'. We read about this on several websites (see below for links) and Miss K is practicing so she can add one to this mini book. Download Mini Book.

3. Reading Log: In side this flap Miss K listed the stories she read and the year they were first published. Download Mini Book

4. HCA's Legacy: Andersen's stories have been adapted into new versions and inspired Stage, Ballet and Movies productions. Miss K investigated this further and found examples. Download Tri fold book

5. Fairy tales: Miss K chose her six favorite HCA Fairy tales. For each of these I made a Mini Book which used to summarize the story or write about the Main Character (s). Download Mini books
  

To make our lap book we used some of beautiful vintage images from The Graphics Fairy.

All our online resources can be found on our Hans Christian Andersen Pinterest board

The Poppins Book Nook is hosted by The Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. 

Here are the participating bloggers: 

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys - No Doubt Learning

French Unit study

Source

Miss K worked hard on her French unit last week. The unit was based around a literature link from the Learning through Literature curriculum. It focused on Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.  During the literature study we were surprised to learn that this story was first published in 1939 and that it even had an official web site and fan club . 

The 3D notebooking pages included:

Geography mini books are from homeschool share. Nat Geo Kids is our go to for research. The photos and videos on there are great! 

Intro to French: After an introduction to Spanish last year Miss K enjoyed hearing french spoken and recorded the common greetings (printables also from Homeschool share). It also prompted a comparison to the Tagalog (Filipino) she hears Daddy speak and we are slowly learning.

Fashion Design: After reading a kids fashion design book I was reviewing this week Miss K was even inspired to create what she called 'french fashion'. She also wanted me to point out that the model in the design below is carrying a poodle dog carrier and not just an ordinary handbag ;-)

 

The Monet Art study was one of the favorites things we did this week. The mini books we made ourselves. I posted all the fun here. 

Another popular part of our 'tour' of France was sampling some French foods. Miss K made Pain au chocolat all by herself. She wrapped up some chocolate chips in crescent roll dough (from Immaculate Baking). They looked pretty close to the real thing! They disappeared pretty fast too!

the brand of rolls we used..

2nd grade-ish Curriculum plan for 2013

Last year we were virtual schooling so we had the year's lesson plans laid out for us. You can read more about our journey and curriculum here.

I had only planned our lessons until the end of the year so we could make any required changes in our curriculum. Here is what I have so far...I am still

Language arts/spelling

• Copy work from St. Annes Helper. Miss K can review her Catechism and do copy work at the same time! We downloaded some samples last week and they were great. Miss K proudly showed Daddy her beautiful writing.

• Continuing with Learning Language arts through literature (3rd grade)

• 2nd grade & 3rd grade word spelling list from Time 4 learning.

• MCP phonics B

Math


The Math in Focus curriculum is sold in two parts, we had just purchased the first semester books just in case it wasn't a good fit. The lesson themselves are really good for Miss K. We just recently changed up the order we did the chapters. I felt Miss K needed more confidence in addition and subtraction before we could move onto multiplication. I got a bit sneaky. We did two lessons of math each day. One from the math in focus measurement unit (chapters ) and then later in the day some from Mammoth math addition and subtraction 2b. Usually miss K also does 20 mins on IXL...so that's kind of three math lessons. She has yet to notice because she doesn't consider measuring stuff and computer work 'Math'. Having said that, the IXl novelty is starting to wear off now that the virtual prizes are not coming as readily now as they do in the beginning.

History/Geography

We have a few more days left of Advent and then we return to our Galloping the globe.

 

Science

• Considering gods creation
• Galloping the globe
•  Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett.

 

 

 

Dogs unit study Click here to view more details

Roller coasters Click here to view more details

 Volatile volcanoes Click here to view more details










Catechism

Grade 2: Call to Faith . Miss K really loves this series. We were using Faith and Life last year but our Parish is using this, but even if/when we move I would continue with it.

• St Anne's Helper copy work books. The samples we tried were really good so we have ordered some for Miss K. Use discount code: catholicmom

Click here to visit St. Annes Helper.

 

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The Library trip with books about Angel Pigs

This past week was a mixture of Measuring and Christmas. Our library choices started out that way. We found so many fun books. It was had to make our ten book pile but here are our favorites this week, in no particular order.

Angel Pig was a cute heart warming story about the true spirit of Christmas.

 

I would really like to get all of Ms Leedy's Math themed stories. Miss K really loved the dogs and it explained the Measuring concepts well.

 

I found this one, full of colorful photographs and clear text. Miss K sat down and read it cover to cover as soon as we got home. Mini Piwi decided if Big Sis liked it, it must be exciting and carried it around for the afternoon. The following day she also insisted we weigh apples like on the cover of the book.

 

Spiderus from the 'Little Miss Spider' series has to learn about the joy in giving.

 

This is full of cute and easy Christmas art and craft...our favorite was the ice candle.

  

A cute collection of short Cat tales, quotes and facts. Being a big Cat fan, Miss K chose this one and has been reading quotes aloud to us all week.

We love all of Lisa Bergen's books. She has a great Christian YA series I can thoroughly recommend Waterfall: A Novel (River of Time Series)

 

I am reading this aloud as it is full of great facts about the way different countries and cultures celebrate Christmas. Miss K is working on a Christmas around the world lap book from Home school share.

 

Bear's buddies try to keep him awake to celebrate Christmas. I think we can all appreciate being woken up early for Christmas present opening!

This beautiful story from Mexico was new to all of us. We really enjoyed this and 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' by Tomie DePaola.

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