School Age S.T.E.A.M.: Flutterby Butterfly!

School Age: Flutterby Butterfly A celebration of individual differences, life-cycle, nature and change. Combines fiction and non-fiction, and sign language songs. More ideas at https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Caterpillars%20%26%20Butterflies

Bob and Otto – Robert & Nick Bruel  (Otto the worm is saddened when his friend Bob the caterpillar becomes a butterfly until Bob reassures him that his role in digging through the earth is critical in this story which beautifully combines earth science and the power of friendship.) Booktalked: Bubba & Trixie – Lisa Campbell Ernst – (An adventuresome ladybug with a damaged wing who cannot fly befriends an apprehensive caterpillar and helps him learn to enjoy life and be happy with what he is and what he becomes.)

Sign Language Song: "Look up Look Down"  -from Pick Me Up: Fun Songs for Learning Signs – Robert Berg, et. all 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle (reinforcing days of the week and counting, talked about how Eric Carle used colored tissue paper to make his collage papers)

If at First You Do Not See - Ruth Brown (kids practiced close observation with this clever  book -- vegetation becomes faces when the pages are turned upside down...possibly inspired by the works of the 16th c. Italian painter Guiseppe Arcimboldo)

Sign Language Song: "Let's Take a Little Walk") -from Pick Me Up: Fun Songs for Learning Signs 

A Butterfly is Patient 595.789 AST (wonderful book in the An Egg is Quiet and A Seed is Sleepy series) Because this group today was on the younger side, we skipped a lot of the detailed info here but there is a lot of great info. – e.g. the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon - the latter is spun of silk, the former is a kind of exoskeleton formed from the caterpillar's skin; also that butterflies can fly a mile in 3 minutes (faster than a human can run)

DVD: Waiting for Wings -- Lois Ehlert A musical version is on the Scholastic DVD Singalong Stories, we acted out with scarves).

Did some of the art projects featured here. https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/art-science-flutterby-butterfly.html

Additional art idea: have the children make nature collages inspired by the books "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Waiting for Wings"

5/28/2025 Clarence Dillon Library