A week on feet & animal tracks

This week we are learning about feet.  Our feet and animal feet.

Circle Time - Toe Count! - We counted our toes.  We had to do a re-count because one kiddo swore he had 11 toes.  Ha!

Journals - One kiddo drew feet in her journal, so stinking cute!

Toenail Painting - Since we are learning about feet, I figured we could do some decorating.  Ha.  

Shoe Compare - We talked about the jobs different shoes have.  We looked at the different structures of shoes and wondered which would be best for which job.  We investigated the tread as well.

 Then we tried them out.

Footprints - We headed outside to create some painted footprints.  The kiddos painted the bottom of their foot, we made a print then they got to run across some paper and finally the wash off.

The water from our "washing off" was running down the edging of the lawn.  One kiddo  created a bridge with his feet for the water to run under.

Foot X-Ray - We looked at a few x-rays and how the bones were placed, then we tried making our own...

These x-rays are from the youngster class:

Here is an x-ray from the preschooler class:

Mail Center - The kiddos rediscovered the mail center today.  They were having a grant time stamping and mailing things.

Jumping Feet Game - I found these fabulous craft foam feet at the dollar store.  I laid them out for the kiddos to hop from one set of footprints to another.  After a couple of hops the feet got all askew, but that made the game even better!

 

The second half of the week we are focusing on animal feet and their tracks.

Hunting for Animal Tracks - The kiddos each got their own tracks paper.  I "hid" tracks all around the preschool.  Then the kiddos went searching for them.  When they found a track, they had to identify it on their paper.  If they weren't sure which track it was, they were to look at the letters of the name to match them.  They did great!

 

Bear Caves - We made caves and then created a habitat for our bear to live in.  We talked about the need for food (fish, berries, honey).  As the kiddos worked, I glued their pom pom bears together.

Mouse Paint - We love this book.  Last week one of the kiddos asked if we could mix colors like the mice do.  I thought that was a great idea and it fit perfectly with our week on feet since the mice mix the colors with their feet.

We used Q-Tips for our mouse feet.  The kiddos enjoyed dancing their Q-tip mouse feet in the colors and then mixing them.  I always love the excitement and surprise they have as the new color emerges.