Butterflies & Moths

About this post

So I'm up to bat again for teaching at the beloved Co-Op (or 'coop' in our shorthand emails;^)). I chose Science- well, really, it chose me because I began to get all these random ideas of what I could excitedly teach the kids so I went with it. Never look an inspiration gift-horse in the mouth. Or re-invent the wheel...I'm happily recycling these LP's for our homeschool classroom, too. Even though Babygirl is in my coop class this time around, I think she can bear to hear it all again for the sake of her sister's learning.

So for the next five weeks or five posts, I will be sharing my lesson plans and class happenings with you in a slightly different format than the norm. Also, my target age range is 4-7 year olds. Bear with me. 

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We began all of our insect classes by learning relevant signs for our topic. For this class, they learned three new signs: 'butterfly/moth", "fly" (verb) and "flower". 

We talked about the word "butterfly/moth" in the Qur'an found in Al Qaria 101:4. *A good friend gave me a great suggestion, which I love and still re-use for lots of things: she said give them the word "faraasha" in Arabic and then when you recite the ayat for them aloud, have them raise their hands when they hear the word "faraasha".

We went on to discuss butterfly, moth, and insect anatomy & their life cycle, as well as the similarities and differences between butterflies and moths. The kids learned to identify and distinguish between them by sight & practiced by looking at full-color photos on the computer & in some books we read. 

They used a magnifying glass to look at dead specimens I collected from our neighborhood of a moth and two butterflies. I made sure to keep the insects either in a small, glass jar that was easy for them to safely handle or in a ziploc bag that they could hold flat in their palms. I had a toy prism on hand to serve as a tactile demonstration of a "compound eye" that they could look through. 

More detailed lessons on butterflies & moths