Curated OER
Interesting Insects
Students discover the characteristics of insects. They explore insects through cooperative learning, group projects, hands on activities, and poetry. They gain knowledge of insect life cycles, habitat, and physical characteristics.
Curated OER
Season Board
Students help create a classroom display for use throughout the year in this Art-based cooperative-learning lesson. The display can then be modified for different seasons and activities. Ideas for season modifications are given.
Curated OER
Feathered Friends
In this language arts activity, students practice reading through the flip-book with the focus upon the acquisition of new vocabulary.
Utah Education Network
Uen: From Caterpillars to Butterflies: Life Cycles
Second graders will illustrate and compare the life cycle of a butterfly.
National Geographic
National Geographic: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Its Life Cycle
Engage students with a retelling of Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and watch a video from "Great Migrations" to enhance scientific discovery of the life of a butterfly.
Other
Curriki: Butterfly Life Cycle Lesson Plan
Project to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly and how the caterpillar becomes to be a butterfly.
Ed Koday
Web Archive: Viceroy Butterfly
The upperside of the viceroy is orange and black, and looks a lot like the monarch butterfly, except the viceroy has a black line across the hindwing and a single row of white dots in the black band on the edges of their wings. Where...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Creepy Caterpillars to Beautiful Butterflies
Students will explore the life cycle of a butterfly using a website and observations of caterpillar metamorphosis. This lesson will incorporate science, mathematics, language arts, and art.
Iowa State University
Iowa State University: Iowa Insect Information Notes Butterflies and Moths
This series of articles is about butterflies and moths that you may see around your house. There is a special focus on the caterpillars that will become the moths because they cause most of the damage to trees.
University of Florida
Florida Museum of Natural History: Animals 2: Insects and Spiders
This teacher's guide focuses on the smaller animals that inhabit our world: insects and spiders. These fascinating creatures provide young children many hands-on opportunities to learn about the diversity of living things, how living...
Read Works
Read Works: Time to Fly!
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about monarch butterflies and their migration patterns. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Butterfly Life Cycles
This unit introduces students to a study of life cycles by having them examine the life cycle of a butterfly. The students will observe, record and describe the changes in caterpillars as they become butterflies. The teacher will...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Study Life Cycles With Butterflies
This site is a lesson plan for teachers. It is a lesson to study the life cycles of a butterfly. It explains how the students would find caterpillars and build a home for them.
Orca Book Publishers
Orca Book Publishers: Chance and the Butterfly Teaching Guide [Pdf]
Chance and the Butterfly, a novel written by Maggie deVries, looks at a foster child's struggles to fit in at school. He becomes fascinated by the caterpillars being studied in his classroom and takes one home. This teacher's guide...
Other
Vida: Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly
Use these images to study the monarch butterfly's life cycle.
PBS
Nh Pbs: Wildlife Journal Jr: Making a Butterfly Garden
Learn how to build a butterfly garden and choose plants that will provide food for caterpillars and butterflies.
Science Museum of Minnesota
Science Museum of Minnesota: Butterfly Collection
Site full of beautiful butterfly photographs including the emerging of a butterfly. One link also provides detailed information on the life cycle of a butterfly as well as a quiz to complete when finished.
Other
Alphabet soup.com: Insects and Spiders
An extensive list of activities, songs, poems, and fingerplays are listed by alphabet-soup.com. Additional recipes, art projects, and literature connections are also included.
Enchanted Learning
Enchanted Learning: Insect Crafts
An extensive list of elementary insect crafts. Each activity contains a list of everyday materials, and detailed instructions.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Using Web Based Bookmarks to Conduct Internet Research
The important thing about this instructional activity is that it connects literature and science. The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown provides a model for original student poems about a content area topic. Web-based bookmarks guide...
SMART Technologies
Smart: Life Cycle of a Butterfly
This lesson uses Smart Response technology to review concepts learned at the end of a science unit involving the Life Cycle of a Butterfly. The lesson can easily be adapted to fit the needs of more advanced or slower learners in the...
Other
Insectclopedia: Lesson Plans
A very comprehensive site from pedagonet.com that includes lesson plans on insects for all ages and grade levels. Students will enjoy learning about insects as you employ these engaging lesson plans in your own classroom.
Science Museum of Minnesota
Science Museum of Minnesota: Metamorphosis
A very simple, interactive, and informative explanation of things students can do to learn more about butterflies. Elementary appropriate.
Books in the Classroom
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site: Eric Carle
What do you know about Eric Carle, the author? This Carol Hurst site highlights some interesting facts about this author's life and refers to some of his books.