Never thought we'd get here, but we made it!

This past Monday was our last lesson with the second graders. :( Because our butterflies had emerged and we released them, we had a challenge finding a good lesson idea for this week. Sarah and I decided to use literature as a way to recap what we did during the unit. We started off by reading a book callee Butterfly House by Eve Bunting. This book tells the story of a little girl who finds a caterpillar and raises it until it becomes a beautiful butterfly! After reading about a page or two, we had the students make predictions about the ending. We hoped that they would predict that the caterpillar would turn into a butterfly...and most did! It was good to hear their ideas because it showed us that they remembered the life cycle! 

After reading the story, we had the children fill out Butterfly Venn Diagrams about the different ways that a person can take care of a caterpillar. We compared our classroom care with the care that the little girl gave her caterpillar. 

This was a great activity because the children could really relate to the material, having raised caterpillars themselves. When they returned from recess, the students each filled out an assessment quiz about the book. Once again, this quiz was "about the story" but really...the questions were about the caterpillar unit we just did. Such as "what did the caterpillar turn in to?" The students didn't have to hear the story to know the answer.

This week we focused on two elements. First was assessment. Sarah and I had several forms of assessment for this week: the prediction sheets, the Venn Diagrams, and the final butterfly quiz. These were good forms of assessment because they each assessed a specific thing.
Secondly, we focused on differentiating instruction. Starting the lesson off with a story was something we hadn't done yet. Therefore, it was a completely different form of instruction than we had been using. This was a good technique to use with for our ELL students because it was a visual representation as well as an auditory reminder of what happens to caterpillars. Also, Sarah and I write all key notes on the board so that our ELL and visual learners can have something to refer back to. We also had a lesson extension because one of our students tends to complete his work before his peers. For this student, we brought extra literature for him to look through if he had the time.
All in all, it was another great lesson. I'm sad that its over...I was slightly surprised that I was so sad to leave these kids. We were given thank you notes and hugs as we left! I guess they liked us too! Can't wait to visit them in January!

TTFN!