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Vol. 11 No. 2 — Mar/Apr 2004

BUTTERFLIES

Billie Bear Butterfly

Begin by viewing great photographs of the butterfly life cycle. Then, let your students explore all of the cool features, such as a butterfly font for their reports, bookmarks, flash cards, coloring pages, and games. E-mail a postcard to a friend. Finally, plant a butterfly garden and leave a lasting class memory for all to enjoy.

Children's Butterfly Web Site

Navigating the Children's Butterfly Web site is a breeze. Concise descriptions of the butterfly life cycle are augmented with color illustrations and presented in several languages. Click on the world map in the photo gallery for images of common butterflies found throughout the world. A glossary, books, and additional Web links are listed under Resources. Rounding out the information is the FAQ page with answers to loads of questions: Do caterpillars drink water? Where do butterflies go when it rains? How long do butterflies live? This is site is a good starting point for students.

Earth's Birthday Butterfly Activity Kit

Since 1989, the Earth's Birthday project has been sponsoring butterfly release events. A project activity kit is available for downloading and printing. Included in the kit are comprehensive materials for each activity and ways to modify it according to grade level. There are over 30 activities ranging from keeping a journal to planting a butterfly garden. This is a must-see Web site when studying butterflies.

Journey North: Monarch Butterfly

Have you ever observed a ravenous caterpillar consume a bunch of leaves? Have you ever watched a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis? On the resource page at Journey North, there is a series of movies about monarch biology with discussion questions to pose before viewing. These visual presentations are great introductions to the life cycle process.

FROGS

All About Frogs

The title says it all. Frog houses, jokes, fables, sounds, photographs, games, facts, and even a teacher's corner fill every nook and cranny at this zany site. If you visit the frog doctor, you will find a wealth of information about the care and feeding of frogs. Hop over to Frog Happenings for frog events around the country. Students will love exploring this Web site.

Frog Metamorphosis

A series of close-up photographs show the development from egg to tadpole to froglet to frog over a period of 131 days. Each image is captioned with information pointing out the incremental changes in the frog's development. Students will be fascinated by the transformation they see over time.

Sampling Sounds of North American Frogs from the Smithsonian

What fun to listen to an assortment of frog audio samples! After this jam session, students will hear that "ribbit" isn't the only frog sound. Common and scientific names are given along with the type of sound.

Something Froggy

Choose from the Primary (K-3) or the Junior (4-8) version to learn about frogs and their life cycle. Both versions follow a story line about Frederick the bullfrog, using age-appropriate words and activities. Younger students will find scavenger hunts, an interactive word search, and crossword puzzle. Older students can test their knowledge by taking the froggy vocabulary quiz or find Frederick down at the pond. Both versions contain froggy facts and a life cycle matching activity.

MEALWORMS AND MORE

ASU-Ask a Biologist—How Do Beetles Reproduce?

This site is designed and maintained by Arizona State University's Life Sciences Visualization Group as an educational resource for students K-12 and their teachers. Fabulous photographs of the beetle life cycle are presented along with detailed descriptions of each stage. Older students will use the information for research, while younger students will enjoy the pictures. In addition, there is an interactive quiz to check what students read.

Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life: Meal Worms

Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life is a collection of 20 integrated lessons with science, math, and language arts activities that use live insects. Activities are aligned with National Science Education Standards (NSES), and most of them include reading a book such as The Icky Bug Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta or Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel. Comprehensive rearing sheets explain how to make containers, what to feed insects, and how to handle them in a classroom setting. Each insect sheet contains information about identifying features, natural history, impact on the ecosystem, and tips on collecting. A Spanish version is also available.

LESSONS

Butterfly Project

This adorable Web site includes a lesson for elementary students about butterflies. Links to many activities are one click away. Templates for comparing and contrasting a painted lady and monarch can be downloaded. Although the site is incomplete, there are some good resources, including a WebQuest.

Enchanted Learning Animal Life Cycle Printouts

Print all sorts of black-and-white animal life cycle drawings with labels and descriptions to use in your classroom. This is a wonderful resource that also covers other subject matter such as music, geography, and history.

Frog Thematic Unit

Ideas for studying frogs in the K-6 classroom are presented in several curricular areas, including science, mathematics, music, language arts, and physical education. Links to frog resources and downloadable files are provided for teachers as well as a bibliography of books, videos, and media.

Where Do Butterflies Come From?

Demonstrate how a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis using materials found at home. Then, watch an animation of the life cycle. This is a cute activity to do with young children.

SOURCES FOR CHRYSALIS, TADPOLES, AND MEALWORMS

Educational Science

Educational Science manufactures and distributes science kits, science novelties, nature kits, biotechnology education kits, and entomology kits and equipment. The company recently developed artificial diets for the painted lady and monarch butterflies, allowing them to sell rearing kits. Conservation is also supported and encouraged to save the monarch.

Grow a Frog Kit

Want to raise frogs from tadpoles without wading through all of the muck? Everything you need to grow a frog is included in these two kits. The Grow a Frog kit includes one tadpole, an aquarium, growth food, decorative underwater landscape, and the Frog Fun and Care booklet for $19.95. The TAD Ventures kit includes three tadpoles, the larger eco-dome habitat, growth food, frog food, water crystals, the TAD-Ventures Metamorphosis Handbook, and habitat soil for $29.95.

Insect Lore

Nature Lore was founded in 1969 by entomologist Carlos White, who spent 3 years coming up with a diet for the painted lady butterfly. Today, in addition to butterfly kits, Insect Lore offers ants, ladybugs, silkworms and worms, frogs, and other living science experiments.

Curriculum Extensions

Consider integrating life cycles into other areas of the curriculum. Brainstorm with your colleagues and create a school-wide unit of study. Listed below are some possible ideas:

• Social Studies—geography of habitats, the effect of man on the environment, maps indicating location of species

• Language Arts—expository writing, creative writing, reading nonfiction and fiction, oral presentations, researching

• Mathematics—problem solving, looking for patterns, counting, graphing, predicting

• Art—drawing/painting, analyzing art in literature, designing

• Music—singing songs about content or geographic areas, etc., playing musical instruments to illustrate animal movement, sounds, etc.

• Physical Education—interpretative dance, playing games such as leap frog

Be sure to visit CyberBee [http://www.cyberbee.com] for more curriculum ideas, research tools, and activities to use with your students and staff.

Resources BUTTERFLIES Billie Bear Butterfly http://www.billybear4kids.com/butterfly/flutter-fun.html Children's Butterfly Web Site http://www.mesc.usgs.gov/resources/education/butterfly/bfly_start.asp Earth's Birthday Butterfly Activity Kit http://www.earthsbirthday.org/ Journey North: Monarch Butterfly http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/Resources.html FROGS All About Frogs http://allaboutfrogs.org/ Frog Metamorphosis http://www.offwell.free-online.co.uk/metimage.htm Sampling Sounds of North American Frogs from the Smithsonian http://www.folkways.si.edu/frogmain.htm Something Froggy http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow9/jun99/ MEALWORMS ASU-Ask a Biologist—How Do Beetles Reproduce? http://lsvl.la.asu.edu/askabiologist/research/beetles/index.html Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life: Meal Worms http://insected.arl.arizona.edu/lesson_03/default.htm LESSONS Butterfly Project http://www.arlington.k12.ma.us/butterflyproject/Default.htm Enchanted Learning Animal Life Cycle Printouts http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/lifecycles.shtml Frog Thematic Unit http://explorer.scrtec.org/ explorer/explorer-db/html/890848566-81EDF7A2.html Where Do Butterflies Come From? http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/butterfly/index.html SOURCES FOR CHRYSALIS, TADPOLES, AND MEALWORMS Educational Science http://www.educationalscience.com/ Grow a Frog Kit http://www.flickit.com/frog.html Insect Lore http://www.insectlore.com/ Literature Connections The Butterfly Book: A Child's Guide to Attracting, Raising, and Keeping Butterflies by Kersten Hamilton. John Muir Publications, 1997. ISBN 1-56261-309-X Butterflies and Moths by George S. Fichter. A Golden Book, 1993. ISBN 0-307-61435-2 The Caterpillar and the Pollywog by Jack Kent. The Trumpet Club, 1982. ISBN 0-440-84620-X Creepy, Crawly Caterpillars by Margery Facklam. Little, Brown and Co., 1996. ISBN 0-316-27342-2 From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman. A Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Book, 1996. ISBN 0-46594-00495-6 It's a Frog's Life: My Story of Life In a Pond: Nature's Secrets Series by Steve Parker ; illustrated by Robert Morton, Robin Carter, and Philip Bishop. Reader's Digest, 1999. ASIN 1575842505 Mealworms: Raise Them, Watch Them, See Them Change by Adrienne Mason; illustrated by Angela Vaculik. Kids Can Press, 1998. ISBN 1-55074-448-8 The Mysterious Tadpole by Steven Kellogg. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2002. ISBN 0803727887 The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Philomel Books, 1986. ISBN 0-399-20853-4 Where Butterflies Grow by Joanne Ryder. Lodestar Books, 1989. ISBN 0-525-67284-2