NTeQ LESSON, PART 3

SUPPORTING ACTIVITIES
During the time spent observing the butterfly eggs going through their metamorphosis, other relevant centers supporting the content would be incorporated to rehearse and/or enrich the content learning:
*Science center- Students check daily to see if anything new is happening. (Analyzing/Evaluating/Visual) It would remain there until the butterflies complete their metamorphosis and are released. A poster of the cycle with relevant vocabulary words attached is posted near the journals. Students record relevant information in their Science journals using drawings and inventive spelling as they make observations (Analyzing/Creating/Visual).
*Creative Movement- Students come to the mat to do creative movement using scarves. Here they demonstrate the stages of the life cycle while listening to music (CD-‘Harmony’. (1996). Monarch. San Diego: Sound Promotions.) (Applying/Creating/Auditory/Kinesthetic). Differentiation occurs by teacher prompting students through the stages as needed.
*Library- Books about butterflies and people who study them would be available
at various reading levels, integrating Science and Social Studies with Reading. Advanced readers visit this center with struggling readers to model tracking and phonetic skills. (Differentiation/Understanding/Applying/Visual/Auditory).
*Book Making- Pair higher-level readers with challenged students to read the
butterfly shape book from (Auditory/Visual/Understanding/Applying/Differentiation):
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/books/butterflylifecycle/.
(Original storytelling while coloring/looking at the pictures is permitted.)
*Listening Center- THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR’ by Eric Carle. (Pairs sent to this center would include a more proficient reader with a less-proficient reader to model tracking, etc.) (Auditory/Differentiation/Understanding).
*Writing Center- Draw your favorite part of the book (above) in your Listening Journal. (Above-level students would be encouraged to add labels and/or sentences to describe their picture. Differentiation/Application/Tactile)
*Art- Students would make a three-dimensional graphic organizer of the life cycle in the form of a hat, following the model provided by the teacher (Analyzing/Visual/Tactile).
Advance Preparation: 1) Gather materials per student: 1 sentence strip for hat, egg- 1 white bead, green construction paper, caterpillar- 1 wooden clothespin with student’s name written on one side, 5 pompoms, 2 googly-eyes, 1 4-inch black chenille wire (antennae), chrysalis- toilet paper roll, butterfly- 1 coffee filter with student’s name written in permanent marker in the middle , dot paints. Each student chooses their preferred color of a sentence strip and writes their name on one end. The teacher ‘fits’ the strip to each student’s head, then sets it aside. After school, the teacher marks off the part that will overlap, and divides the remaining length into four equal parts. In the second and fourth sections, the teacher cuts a 1-inch diagonal slit where the clothespin will be attached.
Center Activity: As students rotate through this center, they complete one section a day. (To differentiate, students who finish quickly should be prompted to assist their shoulder partner, then label the stage and/or add a sentence to describe it. Extra time can be given for students who work more slowly. The teacher will assist students as needed to complete the following tasks:
Day 1- Glue a leaf in the first section (Students may choose: a) to use an artificial plant leaf provided, b) to draw and color a leaf, or c) to draw and cut a leaf out of green construction paper.) Use heavy glue to attach a white bead on top of the leaf. Set aside to dry.
Day 2- a) Twist the chenille wire around the top section of the ‘mouth’ of the clothespin. b) Glue 1 pompom in front of the wire and 4 pompoms behind it on top of the caterpillar. Press down hard and count to 100 to set the glue. c) Place 2 drops of glue on the front pompom and gently tap googly eyes on top. Set aside to dry. Once dry, clip the caterpillar on the slit in the second section of the strip.
Day 3-a) Clean off all residual toilet paper from the roll. Color if desired. Use thick glue to attach it to the third section of the hat.
Day 4- Use dot paints to decorate the coffee filter for the butterfly’s wings. Set aside to dry.
Day 5- Gather coffee filter in the middle and fold it in half. Attach the clothespin to the fold. It’s a beautiful butterfly! Then, take the ‘wings’ off the butterfly, fold them, and slide them into the ‘chrysalis’ with the folded edge at the ‘entrance’ to the chrysalis. Practice having the ‘caterpillar’ crawl into the ‘chrysalis’ and, using your finger to push the ‘wings’ from the other end, place the folded edge in the ‘caterpillar’s mouth’. As the ‘caterpillar’ emerges from the other end of the ‘chrysalis’, a beautiful butterfly emerges! To finish the hat, the student clips on the ‘butterfly’ to the last section, and the teacher staples the strip together so the student can wear it on a tour around the school and then home.

CULMINATING ACTIVITIES
Students will meet in whole-group to review, edit, and complete the KWL Chart by sharing what they learned through this study as I write it down (All levels of thinking/Auditory/Visual).
Students will wear their hats and show tell about their products in class (Applying/Visual/Tactile). Then, with their hats on, they will carry their posters to the newsroom to tell about their creations on the school’s morning television broadcast for all the school to see (Applying/Visual/Tactile).
Students will use the digital camera to take pictures of each other displaying their posters and wearing their hats to be posted on our school’s website and forwarded to editors of both the school and community newspapers (Applying/Visual/Kinesthetic).
After that, a display of the students’ ‘Butterfly Life Cycle’ posters will be posted in the hall with the completed whole-class KWL Chart (Creating/Visual).
In their Writing Journals, students will reflect on what they learned (All thinking levels addressed/Visual/Tactile). Lower level students will draw and dictate sentences for the teacher to write; more advanced students will write using inventive spelling (Differentiation).


ROTATION PLAN
Kindergarten has two center-rotations of 45-minutes each per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Students are assigned to one center in the morning and the next center on the rotation schedule in the afternoon. In one week, every student rotates through every center with a small group at least once a week. For special projects (i.e. in-class computer projects or art projects) students are pulled from their ‘play’ center assignments to complete project-related tasks. Reading ability groups and any students needing reteaching or additional practice are pulled daily during center rotation times, too.