WebQuest for First Grade
Created by: Kelli
Chester
Spring 2008
Introduction | Task | Sources | Process | Guidance | Conclusion
Where do
butterflies come from? What are those insects crawling around that have fur on
them and hundreds of legs? We are going to be learning about how a caterpillar
changes into a beautiful butterfly. We will study about the life cycle of a
butterfly and following this, we will watch the process happen in our classroom
by watching four caterpillars go through the process of spinning their cocoon
and then emerging as a butterfly during a two week period of time. The students
will observe this process daily and keep a record of the changes in a daily
log.
(Click on the pictures
to find the websites)
State of
First Grade
Science Standards: Standard 1: Cells; Life Science
0107.4.1
– Observe and illustrate the life cycle of animals
0107.1.3
– Make diagrams to record and communicate observations
Food
Production and Energy for Life: Recognize the basic needs of living things
(e.g., food, water, sunlight, and air)
Interactions
between living things and their environment: Collect information about
organisms that occupy specific environments; use senses to explore the
environment
Description
of Task
The
students will participate in learning centers where the focus will be learning
about the life cycle of the butterfly. In each center they will explore a
different part of the process and will learn about what takes place during that
cycle. They will read books and will be able to do some research on the
internet about the part of the cycle they are learning about for that day. They
will record their findings in their writing journal. Following the study of the
life cycle of the butterfly, the students will observe the actual life cycle of
the butterfly in class.
http://www.state.tn.us/education/ci/sci/2009_10/grade_1.pdf
Tooter4Kids.
Retrieved March 19, 2008, from
www.tooter4kids.com/Lifecycle/butterfly_life_cycle.htm
Howard
Hughes Medical Institute. (2007). Retrieved March 19, 2008, from
www.hhmi.org/coolscience/butterfly/index.html
Children’s
Butterfly Site:
www.bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/life-cycle
Butterfly
Life Cycle. Retrieved March 19, 2008, from
Warren,
Loraine. Butterflies and Bugs. Retrieved March 21,
2008, from
www.billybear4kids.com/butterfly/flutter-fun.html
The students will be
participating in learning center to help them to learn about the stages a
butterfly goes through during its life cycle. There are five centers that they will
participate in, doing one center each day until complete. At each center, they
will learn about one of the four stages. The groups will be making a booklet
that that they will use to write down the information that they learned in
their center.
Center 1 – Egg
The
students at this center will be learning about the egg stage. They will
participate in looking up information from the websites that I have listed, they are also able to click on the pictures on the webquest that will take them to one of the sites.
Key
Questions:
1.
How
long does the egg stage last?
2.
What
happens during this stage?
The
students will write their findings in their butterfly life cycle booklets.
Center 2 –
Caterpillar
At
this center, the students will look up information in books as well as do
research on the computer to find out information about the caterpillar stage of
the life cycle. They will follow the picture links that will take them to the
websites where they will find the information that they need.
Key Questions:
1.
How
long does the caterpillar stage last?
2.
What
does the caterpillar eat?
3.
What
does the caterpillar look like?
The
students will report their findings in their butterfly life cycle booklets.
Center 3 –
Chrysalis
In
this center, the students will be learning about the chrysalis stage. They will
look up the information online as well as look at information in books to
answer the key questions about this stage of the butterfly life cycle.
Key
Questions:
1.
What
is the chrysalis made of?
2.
How
long does this stage last?
3.
Why
is this stage so important?
The
students will report their findings in their butterfly life cycle booklets.
Center 4 – Adult
Butterfly
In
this center, the students will learn about what happens as the butterfly
emerges from the chrysalis. They will look at information online as well as
look in books to find out the information they need to know about this stage of
the life cycle.
Key
Questions:
1.
How
long does the butterfly live?
2.
What
does the butterfly eat?
3.
How
far does the butterfly usually fly?
4.
What
does the butterfly do before it dies?
The
students will report their findings in their butterfly life cycle booklets.
Center 5 –
Projects
In
this center the students will make butterfly using a coffee filter and a
clothespin. They will decorate the coffee filter with markers and then will
attach the clothespin and then use a pipe cleaner to make the antenna. They
will also complete a flip book where they paste the picture of each stage inside
and on the front will write the name of that stage.
Butterfly Life Cycle
Observation
Following
the week study of the butterfly life cycle, the teacher will order caterpillars
and have a butterfly habitat in the classroom. The students will be able to
observe the stages that the caterpillar will go through that they already
learned about and watch until the butterflies emerge from the cocoon. This
process will take approximately two weeks to complete and once the butterflies
hatch, then we will have a celebration where we release them on the playground.
Reflection
The
teacher will monitor all centers as well as any adult volunteers. The students
will work in teams of four to five children in each center they complete. There
are five centers and each group will complete one center per day and will have
completed all five centers in one week. The teacher will help each group with
doing the internet research and help guide them to the information that they
are looking for and help read the parts that they will need the most help with.
They will also guide them in their writing of the reflection journals when
observing the actual life cycle process in the classroom. This activity will
increase the students knowledge of the life cycle
stages of a butterfly and will use this knowledge to master the standards that
they need to in first grade.
During
the learning process about the life cycle of a butterfly, the students learned
about the four stages that the caterpillar will go through to become a
butterfly. They completed learning centers about what happens during each stage
of the life cycle. The students used the webquest to
find information about the life cycle of a butterfly from the web sites that I
had provided to them. After the study, I had the students actually observe the
life cycle by purchasing caterpillars for the class to watch go through the
life cycle process and spin their chrysalis and then emerge as a beautiful
butterfly. Each day, they would observe what was happening and would write
about it in their observation journal. Once the butterflies emerged, we had a
butterfly celebration where we released the butterflies out on the playground
and watched them fly away. We invited all of the Kindergarten classes to come
and celebrate the butterfly release with us and told them about what we had
observed happening from the time that we got our caterpillars.
