Home PageLaunch Activity
First, I will be talking with the students about butterflies by using a K-W-L chart. They will tell me what they already know about butterflies and we will expand on their prior knowledge. We will also discuss what they want to know and learn about butterflies. Throughout our Literature Circle we will be discovering new things about butterflies together that we didn’t know before. By the end of the Unit, we will have completed our chart. I will have some pictures of butterflies up on the board for the group to look at when they are talking and I am filling in the chart.
Next, I will read with them, Waiting for Wings, by Lois Ehlert. The purpose of reading this book with them is to teach about butterflies through poetry. I will let each student read a portion at a time, taking turns. As we start reading the book, I will ask them, “Do you notice anything while reading these words?” “Do some words rhyme or sound similar?” These will be engagement questions for a poetry lesson. After we finish reading the book, Waiting for Wings, I will read them my very own poem. It is called Beautiful Butterfly.
We also will be looking at other poetry about butterflies on this website.
http://www.pcis.net/hwebber/poem/kids1.htm
We will begin to make our very own poems. Right now, Mrs. Farthings class, the class I'm interning in, is working on shape poems. The students will be inspired to make their own shape poem about a butterfly. Shape poems are poems in the shape of what the poem is about, for example, if a student was writing about an apple, the student would cut out and make an apple to put his poem inside. Art can be implemented into this part of the unit by having the children make their own butterfly out of construction paper. They can color and decorate it however they would like and put their poems inside. I would encourage the students to be very creative. After the students have made their poems, they can each share them with the group.
**Optional**
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, by Paul Fleischman
This book is a great way of introducing a unique and different kind of poetry. The children can read "Chrysalis Diary" (p.39-44). This poem is about the life of a butterfly. The poems in this book are set up so the students can be divided in two groups and read the poem together, one taking the left-hand part and the other group taking the right-hand. This is an activity that the Literature Circle group can introduce to the entire class. The rest of the class can be involved in the poem once they have been introduced to it.