Monday, June 27, 2011

Butterfly Lapbook

     This is Anna's second nature themed lapbook.  Progress on this went a bit slower than with the tree lapbook, but she still enjoyed working on it.  One of the fun things we did to learn more about butterflies is to look at butterfly and moth wings under our microscope. 
It's just a small student microscope, but we were able to see the individual scales on the wings.  I thought it was interesting, because I had always heard that the ends of moth wing scales are jagged, which is what gives moths their fuzzy appearance, and butterflies have smooth scalloped scales. Well... that isn't so.





The picture on the left is of a moth wing, and even though the scales end in a point, they are smooth. (The dots are where the scales have been rubbed off) The butterfly wing however, (which I do not have a picture of) did have a jagged edge on the ends of the scales. Hmmm...






 Finding butterfly wings to examine was rather serendipitous.  I was walking in my yard when I looked down, and there was a beautiful Spicebush Swallowtail, minus the body.  Apparently a bird had gotten it.  After snipping off a small piece to look at under the microscope, Anna thought it would be neat to have the wings in her lapbook, so I taped them onto some card stock and made a little envelope to hold them. 
 
Her spelling and handwriting aren't perfect, but I love her enthusiasm. 



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