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Teach students about butterflies and how they use the parts of their bodies.

Goal
Students will learn about the parts of a butterfly’s body and the butterfly life cycle.

Objective
Students will be able to identify which statements about butterflies are true and which are false.

Concepts of Comprehension©
Pronoun Reference means connecting the pronouns in a sentence to the nouns that they refer to. Read aloud the following sentence from the issue: “Butterflies use their wings to fly. They fly from flower to flower to drink the nectar inside.” Ask: What are they in the sentence?  Repeat the activity with other sentences from the issue, such as: “It grows bigger and bigger.”

Link
Find ideas for butterfly crafts.

Literature Connection
• Betty Butterfly to the Rescue: A Hero’s Story, by Barbara J. Sartin
• Caterpillar Dreams, by Jeanne Willis
• Far Flutterby, by Karen Kingsbury
• Rainbow’s Promise, by Mary Clark Dalton
• Where Do Butterflies Go When it Rains? by Debbie Spurr

Standards In This Issue
Common Core State Standard
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
• Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

National Standard
Science (NSES)
Characteristics of organisms

Before Reading
Set the Stage: Display the cover of the issue. Ask: What kind of animal is shown in this photo? What do you know about butterflies? Do you know anything about how they grow?

Background Information
• About 20,000 kinds of butterflies live around the world. Most butterflies fly during the day.
• The largest butterfly in the world is the female Queen Alexandra birdwing, which has a wingspan of up to 12 inches.
• The smallest butterfly is the western pygmy blue butterfly. It is only about 1 inch from wing tip to wing tip.
• The skipper butterfly can fly as fast as 37 miles per hour. Most butterflies can fly between 5 and 12 miles per hour.
• Butterflies live on all continents except Antarctica.
• The change a butterfly goes through as it grows is called metamorphosis. The four stages of a butterfly’s growth are egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult butterfly.

During Reading
Think Critically: Read about the ways a butterfly’s body helps it do things. Ask: Why might it be important for a butterfly to be able to taste with its feet?

After Reading
Make Predictions: After reading about the butterfly life cycle, ask students: What might happen after step four?

Science Extension: Butterflies drink nectar, or a sweet liquid, from flowers. Explain that a butterfly sucks the nectar through a long, tubelike mouthpart called a
proboscis, which it rolls up when it is not drinking. Show students a party blower to illustrate that idea. Explain to students that they can drink the way a butterfly does. Distribute straws and small paper cups filled with small amounts of juice. Encourage children to imagine that each cup is a flower filled with nectar. They can drink their juice through straws, much as a butterfly drinks nectar through its proboscis.

Art Extension: Precut several hand-sized circles and ovals from construction paper to represent insect body parts, shapes from black paper to represent legs and antennae, and wing shapes from waxed paper. Also supply students with glue and craft eyes. Invite them to create their own insects. Remind them that insects have three main body parts, six legs, and so on.

Adaptation: Invite students to use picture books as guides for making butterfly posters. That encourages students to use content knowledge without depending heavily on language skills.

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Engage students in a lesson about our closest star.

Goal
Students will learn about the sun and our solar system.

Objective
Students will complete a rebus activity about the solar system.

Concepts of Comprehension©
Genre is a type of text, such as fiction or nonfiction. Invite students to find clues in the text that help them know that the text is nonfiction. For example: A student might point out that he or she has learned from other nonfiction sources that eight planets move around the sun.

Link
Find more information on NASA’s kindergarten page.

Literature Connection
• The Contest Between the Sun and the Wind: An Aesop’s Fable, retold by Heather Forest
• Fun Dog, Sun Dog, by Deborah Heiligman
• Hello, Sun! by Dayle Ann Dodds
• Hot Moon, by Jennifer Bogart
• The Sun Egg, by Elsa Beskow

Standards In This Issue
Common Core State Standard
Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

National Standard
Science (NSES)
Objects in the sky

Before Reading
Set the Stage: Invite children to think about the sun. Ask: What do you know about the sun? In what ways is the sun helpful? How is it harmful?

Background Information
• The sun is a star. It is one of billions of stars in the universe.
• The sun is a glowing ball of gases. The temperature of the sun’s surface is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
• The center, or core, is the hottest part of the sun. The sun’s energy is made at the core.
• The sun is approximately 93 million miles from Earth.
• All life on Earth depends on energy from the sun to survive.
• Plants use sunlight to make food. Plants give off oxygen. People and animals breathe in the oxygen.
• The sun is bigger than the moon, even though they appear to be the same size. Unlike the sun, the moon is made of rock. It appears to shine at night because it reflects light from the sun.
• A solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between the sun and Earth. The moon blocks the rays of the sun. The next solar eclipse will take place on May 20, 2012. It will be visible in parts of the western United States.

During Reading
Draw Conclusions: Remind children that Earth gets light and heat from the sun. Ask: What do you think would happen to Earth without the sun?

After Reading
Think Critically: Explain that people might not see the sun on some days. Ask: Why not?

Science Extension: Gather small items such as a pencil, a coin, and a key. Invite children to place the objects on a piece of dark construction paper. Place the paper and the objects in direct sunlight for a day or two. Ask children to predict what might happen. Then remove the items from the paper. Ask: What happened?
Explain that sunlight bleached the parts of the paper that were not covered by the objects.

Language Arts Extension: Guide children to identify words that rhyme with sun (such as done, run, won, and fun). Record their responses. Invite children to create short rhyming sentences using those words.

Art Extension: Cut circles from cardboard, representing the large size of the sun and the relative sizes of the planets in the solar system. Invite students to decorate each planet and the sun with tissue paper or other craft materials. Hang the pieces from the ceiling to create a classroom solar system.

Adaptation: On an easel pad, create a picture of the sun by drawing a circle with eight lines coming out of it. Invite children to say words that they associate with the sun (hot, sky, yellow, and so on). Write one word at the end of each line. When finished, read the words aloud. Then guide children in making sentences using the words.

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Discuss important safety rules with students.

Goal
Students will learn ways to stay safe during summer activities.

Objective
Students will be able to identify the objects in a picture whose names begin with the letter s.

Concepts of Comprehension©
Plot is the events that make up the main story of a text. Read or tell a short story about a child’s summer experience. Write the events on an easel pad, or draw pictures to illustrate events. After telling the story, invite children to discuss the different events that made up the plot of the story and how the problem was solved.

Link
Find more summer safety information.

Literature Connection
• It’s Summer! by Linda Glaser
• Mouse’s First Summer, by Lauren Thompson
• The Night Before Summer Vacation, by Natasha Wing
• One Hot Summer Day, by Nina Crews
• Ready for Summer, by Marthe Jocelyn
• Summer, by Alice Low
• Summer Stinks, by Marty Kelley

Standards In This Issue
Common Core State Standard
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

National Standard
Science (NSES)
Personal health

Before Reading
Set the Stage: Remind students that soon they will be leaving school for summer break. Ask: What kinds of things do you like to do during summer? How do you stay safe when you do those things?

Background Information
During the summer, it might be difficult for some children to follow safety rules, as they have many days of unstructured activity. Use this week’s issue to reinforce the following important summer safety rules.
• Be sure that children are aware of safety rules when they are involved in indoor and outdoor activities.
• Wearing a helmet when riding a bike or a scooter or in-line skating is important because it will help protect a child’s head from serious injury in case of an accident or a fall.
• Both children and adults should wear life jackets when riding in a boat. A life jacket can prevent a person from drowning.
• Children should swim only when an adult is present or a lifeguard is on duty.
• Children should apply sunscreen when going to the beach or playing outside to help lower the risk of diseases that are caused by too much sun exposure.
• Wearing a seat belt when riding in a car helps protect a child if there is an accident.

During Reading
Think Critically: Explain that everyone should follow the rules at all times. Ask: Why might it be important for rules to be followed?

After Reading
Make Connections: Remind children that safety rules are made to keep people safe. Ask: What are some other safety rules?

Language Arts Extension: Play summer safety charades. Encourage each child to think of one summer safety rule. Then choose one child to silently act out his or her rule. For example, the child might pretend to put on and buckle a bike helmet and then pretend to ride away. Invite the other children to guess which rule the child is demonstrating.

Critical Thinking Activity: Display pages 2 and 3. Ask: How are the children in each photo staying safe? What are some activities you like to do in the summer? How might safety rules help you stay safe? Invite children to illustrate their responses.

Adaptation: Arrange children in a circle. Hand one child a beach ball. Play upbeat music. Invite children to pass the ball until the music stops. The child holding the ball when the music stops names one way to stay safe during the summer. Continue until all children have had a turn.

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Introduce telling time to students.

Goal
Students will learn about the concept of time and discuss time in hours.

Objective
Students will be able to write the time on a clockface.

Concepts of Comprehension©
Explicit Information is information that can be clearly found “right there” in the text. After reading the issue, ask students questions such as: At what time did the children visit the museum? What did the children do at 12 o’clock?

Link
Let students play an online interactive game about time.

Literature Connection
• Big Hand, Little Hand, by Judith Herbst
• Clocks and More Clocks, by Pat Hutchins
• Cluck O’Clock, by Kes Gray
• It’s About Time, Max! by Kitty Richards
• Mr. Cuckoo, by Becky Bloom
• Telling Time with Big Mama Cat, by Dan Harper
• Tell the Time with Miffy, by Dick Bruna

Standards In This Issue
Common Core State Standard
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

National Standard
Mathematics (NCTM)
Measurement

Before Reading
Set the Stage: Get students thinking about the concept of time. Ask: How do you know when to come to school in the morning? How do you know that you will not arrive too early or too late?

Background Information
• Clocks and calendars are tools people use to tell time.
• In the United States, people commonly use two types of clocks.
• An analog clock is normally a circle (though they do come in other shapes); it has hands that move around and point to the numbers.
• A digital clock shows the number of the hour, then a colon, and then the number of the minutes within the hour.
• There are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours a day.
• Long ago people used the sun, stars, water, and sand to tell time. Some people still use those methods today.

During Reading
Make Connections: Display a teaching clock. As you read, invite students to come to the clock and change the time to match the time of each activity in the issue.

After Reading
Think Critically: Invite children to think about how clocks help people. Ask: What might the world be like if we had no way of tracking time?

Mathematics Extension: Prepare one sturdy paper plate for each child by poking a hole in the center of the plate. Cut strips from construction paper to represent clock hands. Invite each child to attach the hands to the clockface using a brad. Then demonstrate how to label the numbers on the clock. (Some children may need assistance writing the numbers in the proper location.) Encourage children to make the clocks read different times and to say the times that the clocks show.

Language Arts Extension: Display the issue. As you read each page, invite children to compare and contrast the summer activities with activities at school. Ask: Are any of the summer activities similar to the activities at school? Do the children do things at the same times that we do them?

Adaptation: When transitioning from one activity to another, draw students’ attention to the clock. For example, say, “It is 9 o’clock. It is story time.” That will help children learn the names of different activities and help them develop a sense of time.

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Kindergarten Teaching Centers, 2011-12

March/April 2012

Print your March/April Teacher's Guide here.

February 2012

Print your February Teacher's Guide here.

December/January 2011-12

Print your December/January Teacher's Guide here.

November 2011

Print your November Teacher's Guide PDF here.

October 2011

Print your October Teacher's Guide PDF here.

August/September 2011

Print your August/September Teacher's Guide PDF here.