Spring is here?

Well it appears that we've gone from very cold days to allergy filled pollen days. What happened to slowly changing temperatures and welcoming Spring. In the  Florida panhandle as well as some other Southern states, we have an abundance of pine trees, which means there is yellow pine pollen everywhere.  The unfortunate part of Spring for me is that I must be allergic to every other tree that is blooming. With all that being said, we are finishing up our Spring Break and my third graders will be starting a new unit on Insects, Butterflies to be exact.

Before Spring Break I ordered larva from Nature-gifts. com. They have a great assortment of Painted Lady larva as well as Monarch larva. So I hope when I return to school next week my caterpillar larva will arrive as well. I order one caterpillar for each student so they can monitor it's growth and development. Along with this I do a novel study in my small group reading. The one that best goes with insects / non-fiction/fiction text is the Magic School Bus Butterfly Battle. I have used this for a couple of years and have found that the non-fiction portion of the book is great for reinforcing all those non-fiction text features, and the fiction part of the book is an easy enough read even for my struggling readers. I have created a unit that reinforces the comprehension portion of the story as well as going over Science related aspects of insects. Take a look as see what you think.

Butterfly Battle