This is going to be a hodge-podge post. I am taking Olivia to a play tonight and am up against that deadline and dinner and baths.

Butterfly Update
Yes it came up again today. At lunch Olivia asked if we could “study about butterflies some more.”  So, when she asked to watch an episode of The Magic School Bus while I lay Thomas down, I chose the butterfly one. Later she asked again. I happened to stumble upon Journey North last night while blog hopping, so they sat on my lap, and we watched a couple of videos and did an interactive game from that site.

Next Olivia wanted to make a butterfly art project. I suggested coffee filter butterflies, but she wanted to do a painting instead. John was all over the coffee filter craft and made two. We are waiting for them to dry now to add the body. Olivia finished her painting and then also made a coffee filter.

As they ran off to play I started hearing things like, “No, you be the caterpillar, and I will be the butterfly.” They played at it for a bit and then soon she was back wanting me to type up and narrate their play. John played the part of the caterpillar eating leaves and forming a crysalis. Olivia had a dual role as mama butterfly laying the egg and also the new butterfly emerging from the crysalis. There was a brief scuffle when John felt that he should emerge as the new butterfly, but Olivia pointed out that she had the wings and he “already had a big part.” We talked about filming this with the little camera, but Dad has it put away somewhere. Stay tuned, a documentary may be forthcoming. We shall just see what tomorrow brings.

More Project Based Learning Thoughts and Questions
After I wrote my rambling, question-filled post yesterday I worked my way to the bottom of the Camp Creek series and found this post which addressed many of my questions.

OK, but what I am not seeing above with our butterfly exploration is a lot of questions. Obviously she has an interest, but it isn’t like she is throwing out questions about butterflies. Without questions we have no impetus for inquiry and research, right? Maybe I should ask? Or not? Or observe closer? A journal might help.

And then how do you measure outcomes? I realize that PBL is about learning and not memorizing a scope and sequence. As of right now, we are still more mom-directed than I think we should be if they are supposed to be learning to research and learn on their own. I think a trip to the dreaded library (see previous post) is in order, with a conversation beforehand about our purpose in going.

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Edited to add:
After her bath we had a chat about some questions. She came up with:
Why do they eat nectar?
Why are they so beautiful?

Then we talked about where to find answers. Her first suggestion was to go to a butterfly garden and ask the people who work there. Good idea — now to find one. After some prompting from me, she was also ready to head off to the book store to buy a book. I think I have her talked into the library instead — our wallet will thank me.
On a good note, I see plenty of time and interest in our day to do short lessons on basic skills and CM-style readings and narrations and PBL. We can just replace our unit studies with PBL.

I ordered this book from Amazon last night. Got it fairly inexpensively used and can’t wait for it to come.

Is anyone interested in starting a discussion group about the PBL series at Camp Creek? Please drop me a comment or email me if you would like to read through the posts and discuss them with a small group. A Yahoo group might be the way to go.

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