B is for Ten Magic Butterflies: Library Notes

This is a new book to me.  As I listen to the author share the story for the first time, I will share some of the ideas that come to mind on how to use it to teach reading, writing, listening and speaking skills and to support that goal through the suggestion of other ideas connected to the book.

Theme:  The title tells us there are three main topics to build on with this book: counting, magic and butterflies. 

Cover:  The bright colours on the cover suggest we should supplement the story with art: bold butterflies? fancy fairies? colourful flowers? sparkly magic wands?      

Main characters: Ten flower friends....let's count them from 1-10 (math). Wait, it is also noticeable that the flowers are different colours, let's name the colours too. 

Story Prediction: "Were they always happy?" What do you think? Can you guess what would make the flower characters either happy or sad? 

Questions and Answers from the text:  "What did they do?" They talked, laughed, soaked up the sun, had fun. Note that the answers focus on action words known as verbs.

Text to Self Connection:  What do you do with your friends?  Did you ever have a fun day outside with friends?  

Text to World Connection.  They had a secret desire to fly?!? Wow!  Would you want to fly? What other things fly? Airplanes, blue jays, geese, drones, bees, fireflies

General Knowledge:  What do you know about fairies?  Do they only come out in the moonlight? Is that day or night?  

Imagination:  Have you ever seen a fairy?  What would you tell one if you did?

Interactive Movement: "She started to wave, can you wave too?"  

Key Message:  "You smile and sing, why would you want to be a different thing?"  It is important to see what we are good at and be proud of who we are.  The fairy asked a good question. What can you do?  Can you smile? Can you sing?  YOU BE YOU!

We are now only part way through the book!

Follow up Activity:  Fill in a sheet about Being Yourself. Draw yourself or write a description of yourself for every letter of your name Descriptive, Artistic, Nice-DAN. Make boxes for each of your favourite things (fave food, movie, flower, book etc.)

Games: BingBangBoo fairy wand game.  (Make a wand first?)  Pretend to make the child into a flying butterfly.  

Teach Adjectives: Tiny, blue, bossy, green, silly, orange, sweet, strong, sturdy.  Find the adjectives and match them to the right flower.

Teach Verbs: Fly, wave, look, flutter, flip, zoom, swoop, sniff.  So many action words to find!  Can you also DO them?

Teach Alliteration:  The use of sequential words starting with the same letter is for emphasis. Bing Bang Boo!  Zing, Zang, Zoom!  Find them in the story or make up your own examples.  This is useful if you are working on a particular sound.

Teach Onomatopoeia:  The use of phonetic sounds to make words that closely resemble the sound.  For example: Find bonk, thud, neigh, baa, whoosh and whee!

Teach Personification:  The book contains many examples of giving the flowers and butterflies the qualities of humans.

Teach a Metaphor:  "The grass is always greener on the other side."  What does this mean?  What are metaphors?

Science: Consider what flowers do.  They clean air, make perfume, and give nectar. How do flowers grow? Study plant life or insect life or the life cycle of a butterfly.

Math: Practice ways to make ten.  Make an activity with ten colour circles.  Move them from 'the lawn to the sky' as you read along or do it as a separate math activity for adding/subtracting number 1-10.

https://youtu.be/kBi_RoXKVo0

To hear the book read by the original author, go to this link. 

To further supplement these suggestions, look at the ideas under B is for Butterflies: Themed Activities.

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