Butterfly Nomenclature Cards – free printable

I made this set of butterfly nomenclature cards for M to put together as part of our mini butterfly unit (which I’ll be posting about next week).  It was hard to find something - for free - like this, so I’m hoping some of you will find these useful too.

Unfortunately, with the drawing I was working with, there wasn’t a good way to show the proboscis (butterfly tongue), or the legs on these cards.  And it just seemed strange to have two of the cards show side views while the others show the top view.  M knew about the proboscis because we actually got to see our  butterflies unrolling theirs and sipping nectar through them; we saw their very delicate jointed legs also.  I may still add those two cards in – if anyone would like them included, or as an add-on set for this one, let me know in the comments, and I’ll make them available.

parts of a butterfly

The parts of a butterfly that these cards cover are: antennae, head, compound eye, thorax, abdomen, forewing, hindwing, and one card for the full butterfly.

To use these Montessori-style, print two sets and cut the cards apart.  Leave the pictures and labels together on one set, and separate them on the other set.  The child takes the picture-with-label cards and lays them out in a row, then matches up the separate pictures and labels cards.  It’s a good way to learn new vocabulary, and begin associating printed words with the pictures.

Enjoy!  And remember, these are for your personal use only; you are welcome to write about them on your blog, but please link back to this post!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Off Like a Herd of Turtles.

That is one of my husband’s many pithy sayings.  I’m not sure where he got it, but he loves to say it with a cute little sarcastic smile that is trying oh-so-hard not to be a smile.  He’s awful at being sarcastic.  Too sweet-natured.  (Opposites attract, you know. ;) )

Anyway, this is my way of re-introducing myself into your cyber world.  I’m back!  Ye olde laptop is up and running once more and I’m faithfully backing up every little thing I do on it daily.  We did lose many months of pictures, but thankfully quite a few of our favorites were on my personal Facebook page for family and friends to see; so when we are old and gray the first 6 months of this year will not be a complete blank (still pretty sad about losing all the others though!).

Knowing how life is busy and days fly by, I’m sure many of you have not even noticed my absence; but it has felt like forever to me!

Now, the herd of turtles part… I’m not making any promises about how much I’ll be posting in the next few weeks, on account of the approximately 1027 other projects I took up in my spare, un-plugged free time this summer.  I have to see these to completion and that will take time. 
I am also in the middle of planning school activities to begin next week, and I’m sure many of you know how time-consuming that can be.  To help, I’m using a variety of things as a sort of homemade curriculum to follow (mostly free, as I’m just not ready to pay real money for a preschool curriculum at this point.  Yes, I am thrifty down to my toes). I hope to post about all of this in more detail at some point…

And yes, I know I’ve mentioned how I’m not a curriculum sort of gal and M’s not a curriculum sort of guy and we like to just fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to learning, and I’ll just custom-make everything we need, and all that. 

Ah well, I’ve never claimed consistency as one of my strong points.  :)


I hope to post at least once a week to cover our school activities, and eventually get on a more regular blogging schedule.



Have a beautiful day! :)