Friday - Toddlers - Caterpillars & Butterflies

Holey Pom Poms - The kiddos LOVED this!  I just cut holes in the top of a yogurt container and gave the kiddos plenty of pom poms to poke through the holes.

  

Coffee Filter Butterfly - The kiddos colored the coffee filters.   

Heart Punch Butterflies -

Learning Station - Abc Post-It Note Race

Before class I stuck abc post-its all over the classroom.  The kiddos raced out, picked a post-it, told me the letter name and sound, then found it's match on the abc wall.

A week on caterpillars & butterflies

Another great spring theme:  Caterpillars & Butterflies...  

Circle Caterpillars - To make these cute caterpillars, the kiddos laced circles onto a pipe cleaner, then added a face.

Caterpillar Life Cycle - We chatted about each part of the life cycle, so hopefully each kiddo can tell their family the stages of a caterpillar's life.  Egg, caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly!

Band-Aid Butterflies -  I showed my three year olds how to create these cute butterflies by sticking a band-aid half way on, putting the gauze under then sticking the other half of the band-aid on. 

They each did one butterfly, then promptly decided caterpillars (just the band-aid) were much easier to make.  Ha!

Free Play - I found these sweepstake entry forms at Goodwill for cheap.  I pulled them out for the the kiddos today, along with mini clipboards.  The kiddos had a blast writing tickets for each other and what not.

Classroom Plant - Our plant is growing and growing.  This is the one that has been upstairs (left picture).  I was surprised it's not as tall as the downstairs one.

 

Clothes Pin Caterpillars - The kiddos picked their pom poms and I hot glued them on.

Cocoons - We decided our clothes pin caterpillars needed cocoons...
 We decorated tp rolls for our cocoons.  They're pretty fabulous.

 

Clothes Pin Caterpillars - Becoming Butterflies - The next day we took our clothes pin butterflies out of their cocoons and made wings for them.  I had some sparkly red tulle that we folded into a bow and taped in the middle.  This way the kiddos could clip on the wings and take them back off if they wanted.

 

Craft Stick Caterpillars - Finger prints...

 

Circle Time -  We tried out a cocoon (sleeping bag) today.  The kiddos loved it way more than I thought they would.  They took multiple turns, crawling in, changing into a butterfly and then bursting out and flying around the room.

Symmetry - Butterfly Wings - We talked about symmetry in nature (butterfly wings, animals and people).  Then we created symmetric wings by doing the old fold the paper in half trick with paint.  Simple, but cool.  We'll add butterfly body parts tomorrow.

Pretzel Butterflies - Using almond bark and M&Ms we created these yummy butterflies.  Sadly I didn't get a good close up picture and they've all been eaten.

Pencil Sharpener & Spiral Graph - Two kid favorites!  Both take a bit of practice to get the movement, but so fun once they've got it.

Sponge Butterflies - These turned out cute!

Our Symmetry Butterflies - Finished - We added a quick body to our butterflies.

 

Snack Sillies - In theory we were creating butterflies from our bagels.  But we also ended up with mustaches!

Jenga - The kiddos discovered (and LOVED) this game this afternoon.

Learning Station - Abc Tunnel (cocoon) Race

I gave the kiddos the sound of a letter, then they raced through the tunnel (cocoon) found the letter in the puzzle, showed it to me, then raced back through.  Once all the letters were done, they raced back through the cocoon to return each of the letters to the puzzle.

Learning Station - Lacing Caterpillars

Each kiddo had a very hungry caterpillar that they needed to help feed.  So they laced him through the leaf.

One kiddo wanted to try lacing her hungry caterpillar through the book.  It worked great and her caterpillar got to eat several yummy things!

Spring Celebrations!

With the first day of spring tomorrow, I thought today would be a good day to talk about plants and growing things.

Plant Observations - Our bulb after just one week has lovely roots and is greening up at the top!

Growing - We planted grass seed to see if we could grow our own plants.  We also talked about what a plant needs to grow:  water, sun and some love.

Flower Model - The kiddos created their own model (eyeing the felt board) of a growing flower.  They told me the parts and I labeled them.

Preschoolers - 

Youngsters -

Outdoor Plant Observing - We took a moment at the end of our outdoor play to look around for growing plants.  We saw buds on our big shade tree, bulb flowers opening, grass turning green, and some plants greening up.

Happy First Day of Spring!

Today we went with the springy topic of eggs and what cute critters hatch from them.

Circle Time - Oviparous Animals - An animal which lays eggs.  We sorted our plastic animals into two categories:  oviparous  and mammal.  Snakes, spiders, lizards, frogs, sharks, fish, birds, insects ....

Cute Chicks - The kiddos cut a circle out of craft foam and then decorated it as a chick.  Then we made large eggs for the chicks to crack out of.

 Bird Nest - We chatted a bit about where various oviparous animals would lay their eggs and what kind of nests or safe areas they would want to create.  Then we created a nest for bird eggs.  We talked about what a nest is generally made of (sticks, grasses, string, feather bits etc.)

 

We trimmed the top off a lunch sack, then rolled and scrunched it down until it looked nest like.  Then we added various bits of soft stuff to keep our eggs comfy.
You can also see our fabulous, cute chicks we tucked inside our eggs.

 I found these chicks on sale at Hobby Lobby.

 

Egg Exploration - For our science bit today we cracked open a couple of eggs and investigated them inside and out.

We talked about the parts of an egg and how they help the animal growing inside it.
shell - protection
yoke - food source
albumen - (clear stuff) cushioning
air sac - where the animal breaths it's air (end of the egg, look for a membrane covering an air pocket)
stringy white bit - that is the dna material that becomes the animal when fertilized by the dad (we didn't get this far in our discussion, but I thought you might like to know.)

 

Sidewalk Chalk - With warmer weather comes fabulous chalk drawings.  Here is a great shark one of my kiddos created.