Butterflies on my brain: El ciclo de vida de las mariposas

I have had butterflies on the brain lately.  Apparently, there is a park not too far from my home where moms and teachers love to collect milkweed with caterpillar eggs.  Every day on Facebook, I see new pictures of hatching caterpillars and beautiful chrysalises.  So, when I was at the public library last week with my girls and came across this book, Butterflies on Carmen Street/Mariposas en la calle Carmen, I had to share it with you because maybe butterflies are on your brain too.

I have always loved books by this publisher and Monica Brown does an excellent job of embedding the life cycle of a butterfly in a simple, sweet narrative about a girl and her grandfather.  This book would be perfect for first through third grades and probably Kindergarten too at this point in the year.

There are tons of resources out there for English instruction on the butterfly life cycle but I thought I would do a little digging for some Spanish resources.  Here are some Spanish fiction and nonfiction books that look perfect for the primary grades.








Some other resources from the good ol' WWW:
El ciclo de vida de la mariposa monarca - In both Spanish and English, this site offers a photo slide show with short text explanations for each picture.  It would make a great sequencing activity or could be used to match the text with the appropriate photograph.
Ciclo vital de la mariposa - This site has beautiful pictures of the stages of the life cycle with brief explanations in both Spanish and English.
Mi Escuelita Montessori describes hands-on unit of study on the butterfly's life cycle.


Your students can practice sequencing the stages of the butterfly's life cycle using this Scholastic game in Spanish or English.

And if you just need to see and hear something precious, check out this video about a butterfly's life cycle narrated in Spanish by first graders.

When you are ready to put it all together, you can make this craft by Educarpetas.

And, for you dual language classrooms, here is a perfect GLAD chant in English from a first grade classroom and another song from a second grade class to practice the English vocabulary of the life cycle.

So, are butterflies on your brain this spring?  Please let me know if you use any of these resources or if you find some more that I should add here!