The Butterfly Challenge - Our Kindergarten PBL Unit

Don't you just love a good challenge? I do as long as -

• I think that I can be successful. 
• It's interesting. 
• The challenge is open-ended without a lot of rules. 
• I'm given enough information to get the wheels turning but not enough to bog me down. 
• I'm set free to work as I choose.

My kindergarteners like challenges like this, too. They are knee-deep in a project-based unit on butterflies right now, and they're loving every minute of it.  For the first stage of the project, each student picked a butterfly that lives in or can be seen in New Jersey. (Who knew there were so many?) Next, they put their artistic talents to the test as they created enlarged pictures of their butterflies. Didn't they come out beautifully!

 For the second stage of the project, each student researched their butterfly to find out what the butterfly and caterpillar eat. Each student wrote a paragraph using this information, and then I recorded each student reading his or her paragraph. The recordings were attached to QR codes, so the school community can listen to the recordings and learn more about New Jersey butterflies. Scan the code below to learn about the Wild Indigo Duskywing butterfly. The smiles on the faces of our future lepidopterists were priceless as I played the recordings from the QR codes for them to hear.

Stay tuned for more on our butterfly project!