Butterfly Treats

The kids have been finding all kinds of interesting caterpillars and butterflies in the garden which has led to a spring time exploration of butterflies!

Butterfly Treats

​We made these pretty butterfly treats with rice cakes, nut butter, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and parsley sprigs for the antennae.

This butterfly treat was made with apple circles, nut butter, carrots, grapes, and raisins.

The kids loved these tasty treats made with celery, peanut butter, mulberries, and pretzels.

Butterfly Nature Study

​We have been studying field guides and diagrams while learning some awesome new vocabulary words like 'metamorphosis', 'proboscis', and 'chrysalis'.

Monarch Migration

We read Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons and then took a butterfly journey in our yoga class:

The butterflies landed on the milkweed plant and laid tiny eggs on the leaves in the summertime sun.

The egg hatched and grew into a caterpillar.

The caterpillar grew into a chrysalis.

From the chrysalis emerged a beautiful butterfly!

The butterflies spread their wings wide to the sun.

When Fall came the butterflies flew all the way to Mexico!

Where we landed on a special tree in the mountain tops where our ancestors have always gone.

In the Spring we flew all the way back through Central Texas.

Then the butterflies laid more eggs on the leaves of the Milkweed plant for the cycle to continue.

Then the hungry little caterpillars snacked on some fresh milkweed (milkweed tastes pretty bad so this is actually a broccoli shoot!).

Save the Monarch!

​The Monarch butterfly is the official Texas State Insect and the official 'mascot' of Austin Children's Garden as we seek to educate and support the conservation of Monarchs.

A parent kindly donated these milkweed seeds for our butterfly garden.  It is important to plant milkweed for the Monarchs as it is the only food they will eat and modern urbanization and farming practices are destroying much of the milkweed - No milkweed = No Monarchs.  Check out this link for local varieties to plant in our area:

http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2010/11/11/milkweed-guide-choose-best-plants-for-monarch-butterflies/

We prepared the garden bed, planted the seeds, and watered them in.

Caterpillar Sculptures!

The amazing artist, Marci Harnden (Mr Ben's mama!), came by to teach us a clay sculpting class and we made some sweet little caterpillars.

Butterfly watercolors

Butterfly masks

Butterfly "Stained Glass"

Butterfly Alphabet!  Cool puzzle from Learning Resources.

Butterfly mazes

Check out the Top 5 reasons Why Children Should Practice Mazes by Amanda Matthews - Licensed Occupational Therapist:

• Problem solving:  Mazes help children to work on their executive functioning skills, such as planning and brainstorming various strategies (e.g. starting from the beginning of the maze or working backwards from the end of maze).
• Fine motor control:  Mazes require your child to control his pencil through the maze without hitting the black lines. This means that he must take his time rather than rushing, in order to have greater success.  Progress can be observed as your child bumps into the black lines less and less as he gains greater control of his writing utensil.  Children use fine motor control in order to produce correct letter formation and legible handwriting.
• Visual motor:  Mazes require your child to use his eyes to scan the worksheet in order to find possible solutions.  Scanning is a great skill used for reading and writing, as it is important to scan from the left side of the paper to the right side.
• Grading of an activity:  Mazes can be broken down into different steps.  For instance, first have your child start by moving his finger, next a pencil, then a marker through the maze.  This helps your child to solve the same maze three times consecutively, which allows the skill to sink-in better.
• Confidence:  Mazes are perfect fine motor activities to help boost your child’s confidence.  Have your child begin with a simple maze to provide immediate success, and then have him work towards completing mazes of increased difficulty.

​Fine motor and visual motor skills can be practiced in a wide variety of ways, including mazes.  Mazes are a great way to work on handwriting without just writing letters and words. There are many websites that offer free printable maze worksheets for a variety of age levels and themes.  An internet search such as, “simple mazes for 4-year-olds,” will produce a variety of free mazes and printable activities that are perfect for practicing these important skills at home!

Straw Bale Playground

We had no idea when we got some straw bales for mulch that they would evolve into weeks of fun climbing experiences and obstacle courses.

The kids had the great idea to add in our Outlast blocks and ramps to create more fun structures.

Our butterfly mazes had us inspired to make model mazes out of jenga blocks and then build a maze with the straw bales.

We highly recommend straw bales as an awesome, open-ended, outdoor play structure!

Science Experiment  

We did an experiment with baking soda and vinegar to see if a new substance is made. We started with solid baking soda in a balloon. We put liquid vinegar in a bottle. The kids were asked to make a hypothesis about what they thought the result would be if the baking soda and vinegar mixed in the bottle with the balloon sealing it all up. When the balloon filled up we found that a new gas called carbon dioxide was made that was not there before!
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We have been exploring 3-D shapes and geometrical art with our Spielgaben set!

Garden grazing at its' finest!

Spring Fundraiser!

The warmer weather is coming and we are starting a fundraiser for an incredible and educational water table for the kids.  Please check out the gofundme campaign and pass on the link to any family or friends that may want to contribute - no amount is too small to make a difference!

https://www.gofundme.com/atxchildrensgarden
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