Theme or Topic: The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Age: 4

Number of Students: 8-10

Content Standards:

N.PK.4 Use patterns to predict or sort items.

L.PK.1 Investigate animals and their offspring.

2.PK.2 Recognize and replicate simple patterns.

Objectives:
Participation in this activity will increase the child’s ability to
1. Understand the life cycle of a butterfly
2. Replicate the life cycle in a pattern
3. Think and observe about the human life cycle

New Awareness:
1. Information on the life cycle of a butterfly
2. Some animals develop in different stages
3. Humans are different than some animals

Materials:

Teacher made book (Butterfly Life Cycle), multiple copies of photos of the

different stages of butterflies, multiple copies of photos of the different stages of

human life cycle

Activity:

After reading the teacher made book, Butterfly Life Cycle, the students will

get to discuss what they believe the human life cycle is. I will facilitate the

discussion by asking questions like, “Do humans come from eggs?”, “Do humans

develop inside cocoons?”, etc. After getting the children thinking, I will show them

the activity we will be doing. The children will get 6 pictures (attached at the

bottom of this activity). One of an egg, one of a small caterpillar, one of a large

caterpillar, one of a cocoon, one of a butterfly hatching, and one of a butterfly.

They will be split into groups of 3 and asked to recreate the life cycle of a

butterfly. I will have the correct order up on the board as reference. During this, I

will be assisting and asking questions. I will also allow the children to take turns

looking through the book to help remember the stages. After this, I will tell them

the correct order, and then we will briefly discuss the human life cycle.

Information I will share with them: humans don’t come from eggs, we do not

form cocoons, and after birth we just grow and age.

They will receive 6 photos of humans at different ages (attached at the bottom of

this activity) and will get to examine them and decide the order. I will then show

them the correct order.

What Happened:

I did this with the 4-and-a-half-year-old that I nanny, and he enjoyed the

book. However, it was just a slideshow, not an actual book. He does not like bugs

and is very scared of them, so we talked a lot about how gentle butterflies and

caterpillars are. He did a really good job with the butterfly life cycle sorting and

also with the human life cycle. He understood that adults are old, it was hard to

make the connection of which order they go in though.

What Next:

I think I would like to build on this activity by getting a butterfly to watch

grow in the classroom. That would help the children connect the book to real life

and understand it better.

Source:

My own personal idea. Images were used from Google Image Search.
Butterfly Images

Human Images