TEKS: §112.13. Science, Grade 2
(10) Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and processes that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
(C) investigate and record some of the unique stages that insects undergo during their life cycle.
I chose this butterfly poem because I thought it told the life cycle of a butterfly very nicely. I think that it’s important to try and integrate different subjects so that individual subjects like science are not always taught in a specific way. By using this poem, a teacher would be merging language arts with science. I think that a fun instructional strategy for the students to do with this poem would be role-playing. By acting out this poem, not only is the teacher making a lesson more interactive, but he or she is presenting the material in a way that is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Butterflies
By: Karen Shapiro
See the butterfly up in the sky.
Watch it as it flutters by!
Butterflies start as tiny eggs.
Out come caterpillars with many legs.
Little caterpillars growing long,
crawling,
feeding,
getting strong.
They love to nibble and to chew.
They eat small leaves
and big ones, too.
Four weeks pass. They grow more.
They shed their skin.
One time, two times, three times, four.
Once again a change comes around.
Now it is hanging upside down.
Soon, it spins a silky pad
to hold on tight,
and a halter, too,
to keep it upright.
Now it sheds its skin
one time more,
to reveal a chrysalis,
not at all like the skin before.
Inside this shell it is changing,
growing.
Eyes, legs, wings,
are now almost showing.
What can it be?
Wait and see.
It’s a butterfly!
Its wings are wet.
It has to rest.
It can’t fly yet.
Soon, it tries hard with all its might,
spreads its four wings–
and takes a flight.
Like a flower in the sky,
what a sight —
a butterfly!
I agree with you, with integrating subjects. I really enjoyed the poem, and it can be easily acted out. I think students will enjoy this, it’s fun, entertaining, and it will be an easy way to learn and remember the life cycle of a butterfly.
I love the way you connected this poem to the life cycle! I think this poem is a lot of fun and I think its a fun way to involve the students in a different form of text. I would be interested to see if maybe you could use this lesson to try to get the students to make their own poem on a different life cycle! I think this would really be fun to work with different age groups other than 2nd grade too!