Butterfly House

This is a beautiful, heart-warming story of a girl who rescues a caterpillar and how she and her grandfather build a butterfly house to care for it. This is one of those rare treasures (like so many of Eve Bunting’s books) that I read every. single. year!

I use this story during my butterfly unit. It has the perfect blend of a narrative as well as facts about the painted lady butterflies.

Before I even open the book, I like to invite the students to enjoy looking at the cover and making observations. This is the perfect time to encourage children to make predictions about the story.

A prediction is a smart guess about what

may happen after looking at clues.

Ask leading questions:

What do you predict the story will be about?

What on the cover makes you think that?

Next, access your students’ prior knowledge – schema.

Prior Knowledge (schema) is what we already know about a topic.

What do they already know about butterflies?

You might want to use the ‘Predictions & Schema’ page from the (free) book companion.

While reading the story, pause and invite your students to make inferences about the story.

An inference is the reasonable guess we make about the meaning when we take clues from a text and add what we already know about a topic (background knowledge).

Some questions to encourage inferencing:
What would the jay have done to the ‘small creature’?
Where does the grandfather live?
Where is the girl at the end of the story?

You may want to fill out the ‘Making Inferences’ with your students as you read the book. I like to do it as a group so that the students can express themselves verbally as they practice making inferences.

This story lends itself beautifully to the further investigation of the life cycle of the butterfly. I have included a cute little flap book and life cycle cards to use to teach and review the life cycle of the butterfly.

This is a great spring unit packed with fun information and activities on the theme of the Butterfly Life Cycle. This Butterfly Life Cycle unit has integrated Science and Literacy Activities (Common Core Aligned) This is such a joyous unit to do with your students! It is packed with great activities that are sure to spark your students imagination and stimulate their minds.

When I was teaching kindergarten, I would read this story on the last day of school. I told my little sweeties that they were like those caterpillars – I had tried my best to care for them and teach them what they needed to flutter into life! (WARNING: you may have some tears.) Then I said that I was like the girl, now older, who would love for them to come back to me in the years to come and tell me all the amazing things that are happening in their lives –

and many of them do!

Click on the picture to download the free book companion.

If you would like additional resources to teach the life cycle of the butterfly, please check out my butterfly unit, filled with science and literacy resources and activities.

Book Companion, Science

Favorite Resources

8 Comments

Katie Knight April 17, 2016 at 12:45 am

Peggy, this is so perfect. I just CAN'T STAND IT! LOVE ! LOVE LOVE!

vicky1970 April 18, 2016 at 2:32 am

This looks wonderful Peggy!
xo,
Vicky

Easy Teaching Tools April 18, 2016 at 10:39 pm

What a perfect tie-in to releasing our butterflies!

Peggy Means April 19, 2016 at 3:47 am

Thank you, Katie! Do you have butterflies in the classroom now???

Thank you, Vicky! <3

Peggy Means April 19, 2016 at 3:49 am

So delighted to hear that you have butterflies to release!

Kelli April 23, 2016 at 10:06 pm

How awesome! I am always looking for quality fiction books to practice inferring- and your book companion pages look like they would be a great fit for our work! Thank you so much!

Peggy Means April 23, 2016 at 10:16 pm

Hi, Kelli! I am so happy to hear that you will be able to use this wonderful story and companion pages in your classroom!