Every week we get a newsletter from Lily's teachers at Huckleberry Cheesecake, recounting the theme and activities of the week. I will publish these notes each week; a small glimpse into Lily's life at school!
Dear Strawberry Parents,
Learning more great stuff didn't bug us one bit! Our class full of entomologists got bug-eyed about learning more about flies, spiders, ants and other insects. Here's some of the cool stuff we did this week.
During a day of spider talk, we learned some gigantic new words like arachnophobia, cephalothorax, spinnerets, and pedipalps. Kind of brings you back to 9th grade biology! After reading and singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," we were inspired to creating some cool spider art. Check out our spiderweb paintings and bingo dot painted spiders; they're all so interesting. Around the cirlce, we played some color/number matching games using webs and spider legs and also read, Spinning Spiders and Spiders.
As we get into insect talk we learned one major difference between insects and spiders. Insects have 6 legs and spiders have 8. It was good counting practice distinguishing spiders from insects. While at the park, the Strawberries discovered an anthill. It was so cool to gather around watching all the ants working together. We learned more about ants after a read of If I Were an Ant and Ants. Around circle, we matched small, medium, and large anthills with the appropriate sized ant. We also enjoyed building pet ants out of styrofoam balls and black pipe cleaners, using dirt in the sensory table to create anthills, and alluring ants outside with honey.
We also introduced water bugs. Our science experiment included using water and raisins (the bugs). We watched how when bubbles are created the raisins or bugs get carried by the bubbly water. We focused on how the "bugs" floated in the water and practiced our netting skills by trying to scoop them up. Great motor practice! Bug/shape match kept up busy around the circle.
Bees and butterflies are interesting creatures too. Our class project was creating a honeycomb collage using Honeycomb cereal and sampling honey too. I think we all agreed that the sticky treat was delicious! Learning new words such as "beehive" and "pollen" enriched our already explosive vocabulary. "Freeze Bees" was a fun motor/listening game that involved stop and start music dancing. The class was all a buzz!
One can't help but love the butterfly. After reading Monarch Butterflies Life, we fluttered about the room flapping our arms, dramatizing a butterfly's flight. What a graceful bunch! Around the circle, the Strawberries each held their own colorful butterfly glued to a popsicle stick and when their color in the poem was announced, they held it up for all to see and moved it like a butterfly. Take a look at our decorative butterflies complete with Cheerios, tissue paper and glitter.
Lastly, all were engaged in the week-end science video called Happy Birthday Earth Butterfly! The kids were fascinated with the close up images of the life cycle of a butterfly and again learned some exciting new words like "chrysalis," "larva" and "nectar."
That was bugalicious fun! Next week we'll be celebrating America's birthday.
All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers
Learning more great stuff didn't bug us one bit! Our class full of entomologists got bug-eyed about learning more about flies, spiders, ants and other insects. Here's some of the cool stuff we did this week.
During a day of spider talk, we learned some gigantic new words like arachnophobia, cephalothorax, spinnerets, and pedipalps. Kind of brings you back to 9th grade biology! After reading and singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," we were inspired to creating some cool spider art. Check out our spiderweb paintings and bingo dot painted spiders; they're all so interesting. Around the cirlce, we played some color/number matching games using webs and spider legs and also read, Spinning Spiders and Spiders.
As we get into insect talk we learned one major difference between insects and spiders. Insects have 6 legs and spiders have 8. It was good counting practice distinguishing spiders from insects. While at the park, the Strawberries discovered an anthill. It was so cool to gather around watching all the ants working together. We learned more about ants after a read of If I Were an Ant and Ants. Around circle, we matched small, medium, and large anthills with the appropriate sized ant. We also enjoyed building pet ants out of styrofoam balls and black pipe cleaners, using dirt in the sensory table to create anthills, and alluring ants outside with honey.
We also introduced water bugs. Our science experiment included using water and raisins (the bugs). We watched how when bubbles are created the raisins or bugs get carried by the bubbly water. We focused on how the "bugs" floated in the water and practiced our netting skills by trying to scoop them up. Great motor practice! Bug/shape match kept up busy around the circle.
Bees and butterflies are interesting creatures too. Our class project was creating a honeycomb collage using Honeycomb cereal and sampling honey too. I think we all agreed that the sticky treat was delicious! Learning new words such as "beehive" and "pollen" enriched our already explosive vocabulary. "Freeze Bees" was a fun motor/listening game that involved stop and start music dancing. The class was all a buzz!
One can't help but love the butterfly. After reading Monarch Butterflies Life, we fluttered about the room flapping our arms, dramatizing a butterfly's flight. What a graceful bunch! Around the circle, the Strawberries each held their own colorful butterfly glued to a popsicle stick and when their color in the poem was announced, they held it up for all to see and moved it like a butterfly. Take a look at our decorative butterflies complete with Cheerios, tissue paper and glitter.
Lastly, all were engaged in the week-end science video called Happy Birthday Earth Butterfly! The kids were fascinated with the close up images of the life cycle of a butterfly and again learned some exciting new words like "chrysalis," "larva" and "nectar."
That was bugalicious fun! Next week we'll be celebrating America's birthday.
All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers
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