Birds

 The subject of Birds was deep and wide.

With only one week, we barely skimmed the surface of this amazing group of animals.




Our group times focused on some factual information about all birds: they have feathers, wings, and a beak.

 We used our magnifying glasses to take a look at some real bird feathers.  Did you know that birds have three different types of feathers on their bodies?



Using that knowledge, we created birds cut from our easel paintings and added a beak, wings, and feathers. 

 

One of the most interesting birds is the Hummingbird. It's tiny eggs are the size of jelly beans!

We looked at some and compared them with the egg of a chicken and an ostrich.

Then we ate them! (the jellybeans)

 We talked about WHY a bird builds a nest and WHAT a nest is made of.


Using some art supplies, we created our own version of a nest and filled it with Hummingbird eggs.

We practiced the letter "Bb" which begins the word "Bird".


Our writing skills have truly improved over the course of our school year thanks to our brave "risk-takers".

Music time is a favorite no matter what subject we are learning about. This weeks song was  "Five Little Ducks".  Everyone sang, performed the hand motions and laughed when the Daddy Duck called his ducklings home.

 Continuing our look at BUGS, we devoted ourselves to caterpillars and butterflies this week.

We used our new paint dabbers to create colorful caterpillars with many body segments. 

 At group time, we read some great stories about the amazing change that happens to caterpillars.
We also learned a new vocabulary word for this event: metamorphosis.

We practiced drawing the letter "Cc" for Caterpiller and "Bb" for Butterfly.

Using beads and plastic lacing, we created "caterpillar" necklaces, with the beads representing the body segments.





It was tricky work to keep those beads from sliding back off sometimes, but the end result was lovely!

 Look at that LONG "caterpillar" necklace! That is a lot of work.

 Moving onto Butterflies, we used water color paint and coffee filters to create their delicate wings.










We created sets of symmetrical wings with paint after cutting out a large "B" shape.

 

The books that line our shelves are full of great illustrations and facts that help us to understand these wonderful creatures. 

Check out our book list on this blog!

Insects

 We filled a tub with dry rice and lots of rubber insects.

 Using our eyes and our hands, we tried to match pairs of insects.



We found ants, grasshoppers, ladybugs, and beetles.

Using books and larger than life models of bugs, we learned that insects have six legs, three body parts, and a pair of antennae.





Circles are the shape of a ladybug and our new paint dabbers were just perfect for making ladybug spots.

We used a LOT of glue to add tiny eyes and antennae to our bugs.


Can you count all the spots on the ladybug you made?

We counted and sang "The Ants Go Marching" at group time.




Cutting the rounded shapes of bugs at the writing center was a challenge.

Matching pairs of insects had us making decisions and carefully drawing lines to connect the two.

 Our cooking activity was a baking project: Biscuit Bugs

We rolled out dough and cut three small circular shapes for our three body parts.


Carefully placing them together, we watched them bake and ate them up at snack time.


Tasty bugs!

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

In light of what is happening to schools everywhere, not just in our own community, I share this video with you. I first saw Sir Ken Robinson in a TED video (this is a clip from that conference) and felt that all parents and teachers should hear what he has to say about education.

Ocean Week II

 Painting an Octopus may not sound like much of a task, but our friends "dove" into the experience.



We used a simple picture of the creature and taped it to our easel for reference.



Our goal was two part: 1) paint a circle for the head, 2) paint eight tentacles

 More paint followed as we painted our palms and fingers (no thumbs) to make a funny little octopus with eight legs. We counted each one.

 

We glued two eyes on our hand-print octopi because we could see in our informational books that thatWe is the number of eyes a real octopus has.

At group time we read/sang a wonderful counting book filled with sea creature mommies and babies.

After reading about Sea Turtles, we measured (using our bodies) and taped off the area that would hold a Loggerhead Sea Turtle.



We counted off to see how many friends could ride on his back.

Impressive!





We discovered that a sea turtle egg is the shape of a ping pong ball, round, instead of oval like a bird egg.

We practiced our sign-language for three different Ocean animals.










A great recycling project used "bubble wrap" to create frothy ocean water.





It was a print-making project, the first one we've done this year.



















The best thing about making a print is pulling back the paper and seeing the surprise!

 

We added more prints with sea animal sponges.

The Ocean

The sensory table was filled with soft, cool sand this week. We hid and retrieved many different types and sizes of seashells. 

We counted sea creatures with Ms. Amy as we practiced our math skills. 

 

One of our favorite activities this week was following a three step process to create our own ocean bottles.    We used a wonderful little tool, a funnel, to help us get the ingredients inside our plastic water bottles.

 

 We added sand, shells & rocks, and then filled our bottles with blue water. We know that every ocean has a combination of these three things.

We enjoyed several projects at the art table this week.

 Easel paintings became ocean background for paper schools of fish.

Shark cut-outs were given triangle-shaped teeth (lots of them!), eyes and gills, after reading an informational book about Sharks.

Jellyfish were created from paper plates, streamers, paint and glue. They looked so colorful in our windows and now float above us from the ceiling, giving us an underwater feel.







Informational and fiction books were part of our week as we learned about the creatures of the sea.