Kindergarten: Butterflies, The Neighborhood, Boats and Bridges

Butterflies

The life cycle of the monarch butterfly is a fascinating focus of the study of growth, development and change in the natural world. By taking care of their own monarch caterpillars (provided by the Monarch Watch program at the University of Kansas), children have a front row seat to one of the natural world’s most amazing creatures. Children observe butterflies in our garden, feed their caterpillars with milkweed grown on campus, and then discuss and record the changes they see happening right in the classroom. Once the butterflies break out of their chrysalids, the children provide them with flowers from our garden and watch them feed, before releasing them to begin their migration to Mexico.

The Neighborhood

Our local commercial area serves as an introduction to the world outside of school. While children have certainly visited many places of business with their families, few have focused on questions such as: What kinds of services are necessary in a community? Who does the work in a community? And, what goes on behind the scenes in a post office, firehouse, or place of business? Through visits to a wide variety of places, children get to ask questions, experience the worker’s side of a restaurant or pet store, and then recreate, discuss, and express their understanding of the local world outside of school.

Boats and Bridges

Our local community is connected to the wider world with many bridges, and the bodies of water spanned by those bridges are busy with all kinds of traffic. Children in kindergarten develop a broader sense of the complexity of life in New York by studying the many kinds of boats, services, and businesses that ply the waters surrounding the city. Through the study of the design and architecture of our many bridges, children develop an understanding of the need to stay connected as well as the science of how to stay connected.