P, D, G, and O were our observers and records for that week!
While the recorders documented their observations, other friends keenly worked on their skills of observation too coming forward in groups of three's.
Later we did,' The very hungry caterpillar' as a felt story
Friends with oranges came forward...
Caterpillars weekend food...
Little caterpillar turned into a big one...
Butterfly time ;)
All week we waited for our well cared for caterpillars to come out of the chrysalis and show us their hatching process. Unfortunately, even until Friday the chrysalis' hung up tight!
During that week we moved our caterpillars who were already in chrysalis to the butterfly house...
Later, we started the project of making our own versions of caterpillars that we had been observing so far, using sticky rice, raisins, and pretzel sticks.
Using pretzel sticks for the spiky legs...
Making eyes with raisins...since they all had noticed them during observations, they were sure to put it in their version as well.
We did rock painting and as we put them to dry on the paper, friends noticed that the line up resembled like a caterpillar's body. Thus we went ahead with a new plan and created a small caterpillar habitat using rocks and coloring the scenery.
Lining up to dry them...
For letter E we discussed the position of the lines where we noticed that letter E was made of 1 standing and 3 sleeping lines. Later we headed to make collages...
We worked on catching bugs using special scissors. We dug them in the Elbow noodles sensory bin and had fun scooping, catching by using our fine motor skills. They also worked on their math skills as they took out and put in the bugs.
For letter E we had some wonderful sharing!
J talking about the Eagle craft that he worked on at home...
D shared a book written by the famous author and illustrator 'Eric Carle'...
This was a teachable moment and I went to collect a few more books. For example, "Brown Brown Bear","The Very Hungry Caterpillar","The Lonely Firefly", etc. We read those titles and saw the similarity of the authors words and illustrations in all his books.
W got an Elephant and spoke about the elephant's characteristics...
Thank you, parents, for always thinking out of the box and sending things to share. This is a great interaction time where the speaker learns to speak and answer questions while the listeners listen attentively and ask questions - a very important skill to carry along!
Looking at their interest in counting bugs at the sensory table, I opened a center to place the correct number of eggs in the nest which would make mommy bird very happy. I posed some challenges of adding and subtracting, for example, putting 9 eggs in a nest that should have 4, and asked them to correct it and visa versa. They got super interested in this cognitive activity.
We made 'English Muffin Pizzas' and friends enjoyed layering them- bread, sauce, and cheese. I asked them if they wanted to layer it as first bread, then cheese, and sauce on top. Everybody denied :-) Guess what, our chefs know the layering recipe and nobody can trick them!
Some other highlights of that week...
At circle we worked on recognizing and grouping colors...
We started sorting the poms poms and extended it by finding and adding other objects...
adding crowns, quills, paper plates and plastic spoons, wrist bands, etc.
Some lined them up and exclaimed, "caterpillars!". Thus, we later worked on that at the stations.
Open ended activity with pipe cleaners (P) and coffee stirrers (C)..
D connecting them in a pattern- PCPCPCPC....
S making a necklace...
See you'll around!
Hugs,
Rashida.
