Goodbye, Butterflies

I feel like I'm so behind!!! In everything!!!... Papers to grade, stuff to organize, blogs to catch up on and comment on, shows to watch, chores to do!!! Eeek! I am buried under a never-ending pile of papers this weekend. Luckily in 10 ten days I'll be able to slow down and catch up!!! I cannot wait for a break!!! There are SO many things on my to-do list!!!

Last week it was finally time to let our butterflies go. 

We said a cute little goodbye poem to our butterflies,

then took them out to the garden to let them fly free. 

This year went MUCH better than last year!!! 

This little friend exclaimed, "I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT, BOB!" to this butterfly as it fluttered away. Sooooooo funny. And I miraculously got it on video. Randomly. I just put it in the kid's end of the year DVD. Good memories! :) 


Last year, the birds starting diving as soon as we let the butterflies go. The birds had a nice lunch while my kids learned about food chains and predators & prey. :-/ 

Have a great weekend!!! 

:)

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Life Cycles and Research Writing

We have been busy busy busy working on life cycles!!!! Our caterpillars turned into chrysalis, and today they started emerging as beautiful butterflies! :)


I jimmy-rigged one of our iPods (this wasn't easy and involved a plastic bag, scissors (to cut a hole in the net!!!), a clamp, and lots of tape)...

using our time lapse app to record one coming out of the chrysalis. Check it out!!!

(Sorry it's sideways!?!?!)
We are also doing some research writing about life cycles!!!
I found this great new app:

that we are using! The kids had to work with a partner (without screaming or grabbing or crying...we're really working on that stuff this time of year...know what I mean???) 

to explore the app:

 and fill out this form: 

(Click it to get it from GoogleDocs... I will cross my fingers that GoogleDocs wants to comply...)

These were some of my favorites: 

"I chose this creature (salmon) because I like to eat this fish."

"I chose this creature (wasp) because I got stung by one and I need to know information."

Then we hit up EdModo to share what we're writing about!

All in all, this lesson (well, the first day of it...) went very smooth!!!

I am so incredibly lucky to have access to some amazing technology to make a lesson like this possible (although it could be done with only one device)! Please let me know if you have any questions about anything!!! I'd be more than happy to share!

And if you have any ideas, I'd LOVE to hear them too!!! 

I hope you had a wonderful Wednesday!!!!!

:) 

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