Milkweed.

Milkweed.

Sep 17

Today we started our first PBL (Project Based Learning) on butterfly life cycles.  To prepare, I went in over the weekend and blew up my life cycle inflatables.  I have an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly.  I placed one above each table… problem is, I have five tables, not four.  So the fifth table had nothing.

After I came home, I kept thinking about the poor fifth table with nada.  I wanted to be able to call and dismiss tables by whatever was hanging above them – I thought this would be a great way to drill the vocabulary… what was I going to say for the fifth table?  ”If you don’t have ANYTHING above your table please line up?”  Pathetic.

Then it hit me – milkweed!  We’ve been talking a lot about how Monarchs only eat this plant and this was surely something I wanted all my sprouts to know.  So, this morning, I raced in super early, made a very simple milkweed leaf, laminated it, and strung it up above the fifth table.  Problem solved!

Even though it was so basic, I felt so crafty and my kids just loved it.  Yay for milkweed!