Last week, we did lots of activities to help us learn about the Monarch Butterfly.

First, we read this book:

We then made life cycle bracelets to help us remember how a Monarch grows and changes:

Here are what each of the beads represent:

I set up the containers of beads this way and the sticky flags tell the kids how many of each color they need.  They grab their pipe cleaner and string their beads on as they move through the tubs.

We also made “squishy” bags:

First the gold bead is the egg, then the pipe cleaner is the caterpillar.  The leaf shape represents the chrysalis and the butterfly bead is of course the Monarch!

I got all the beads/leaves at Jo-Anns a few years ago and purchased enough to get me through!

I put them in out in the smallest Ziploc containers and the kids just picked out the number of each thing they needed.  They put them in the bag and then came to see me.  I squirted in a good amount of hair gel (got it at the Dollar Tree–3 bottles have lasted me 2 years now!) in their bag, sealed it up, and taped it shut.

Kristen 🙂