Butterfly Garden

In the last two weeks we have been learning about butterflies. The idea started with a gardening project: Max and his dad Ron brought milkweeds and some flower seeds to plant in our playground. The milkweeds plants already had a couple of butterfly eggs on their leaves. On the day of the gardening children helped Ron prepare the soil by spreading compost with rakes and shovels. Next,
they helped to dig holes for the plants and seeds. Ron planted the milkweeds, and the children were given the task of planting the seeds. Before they had tossed the seeds into the ground, they gave them some love: "May you grow big and strong little seeds. Thank you for your beauty and grace." Once the seeds were all in, the children watered them.

                                               Getting compost from our compost bin

Spreading the compost

Milkweed plant

Flower seeds

"May you grow big and strong little seeds.

Thank you for your beauty and grace."

Children tossing the seeds in.

Watering.

Litte worm from the garden.

Every day since then we have been watering the plants and checking on the eggs. Finally, on Friday we spotted tiny caterpillars and noticed few little holes on the leaves on which the caterpillars have been munching.

Checking on the eggs with a magnifying glass.

Boys watering the garden.

Sunflowers sprouting.

Our other butterfly activities included: reading books about gardening and butterflies: Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner - a great story about gardening and garden creatures, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, and The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne and Cathy Shimmen, among others. The books helped us illustrate and learn about butterfly life cycle and get the children excited for our little garden.

To incorporate music and movement, we have been singing a caterpillar song and doing a butterfly dance, which involved colorful scarves. At yoga, we have been doing a garden flow this month.

Little Seed pose at yoga.

Butterfly Dance

In our "Art Center", I have been setting up this week an INVITATION TO DRAW with little butterflies and caterpillars on top of the mirrors for the children to get inspired to draw. I also added stencils for encouragement. 

It has been a great project so far. We are excited to watch the caterpillars grow every day and can't wait for beautiful butterflies to emerge in a couple of weeks!