We started off by introducing the concept that animals can come from eggs by hiding toy animals in Easter eggs for the girls to find and open. I talked about how some of the animals we found came out of eggs (chicken, duck, frog and snake) but some of them (cow and pig) did not. Then I reminded the girls of one of their favorite stories, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle (which we watched during snack later) and talked about how caterpillars are born from eggs.
I love the new draw and dictate sheets!! They come with a story title and a prompt to get your child drawing and then you write down the story they come up with (I had the girls write their names by themselves). These are fabulous and it sparked an idea for teaching the girls to start keeping daily journals. Miss M's story reads as follows:"Once upon a time an egg fell and a caterpillar came out. It fell into a puddle and was so wet. He sunk in the water and Jesus came and helped him. He was happy."
The girls were very detailed with their drawings and content to do this activity for quite a while before we moved on to making the egg on a leaf craft. Littlest loved dotting the glue on by herself and scattering the orzo "eggs" over it.
We read the caterpillar story included in our materials and the girls practiced their color identification and counting skills by finding the fruit that matched the details in the story. We finished off our first day by making the cornstarch caterpillar sculptures. I should have had them use a little more water to make them sticky because they kept falling apart. The straws were also kind of difficult to poke into the noodles for the antennae and legs but toothpicks worked great.
For our second day of class, we talked about chrysalises and butterflies. First, we reviewed the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" again and talked about how he makes a cocoon at the end of the book. Then we did the number review activity from the Teacher Guide but I changed it just a little. I gave them each their own cardboard tube and a length of tulle I had left over from a Halloween skirt project and taped one end to the tube. We used one of the bigfoam dice we've collected from our teacher materials so they could practice counting and had them grape the tulle that many times around. After a few times through, I realized that their tulle was really, really long and it was going to take forever to finish the activity so then we took turns wrapping our tulle completely and counting how many times it took to finish.
They then took turns getting wrapped in a big blanket and "emerging" from this soft cocoon to get an idea of what a butterfly goes through. Everyone wanted multiple turns with this activity.Next we talked about how butterfly wings are the symmetrical. I made a game out of the activity by making a design on one side and having them copy it on the other side, then they got to design a wing and I had to repeat it. It was fun and one I will pull out again when they need something to do.
The life cycle activity was so cool!! I drew quadrants for all the girls but they cut out their labels and glued them on (I checked to make sure the order was correct) by themselves. I had them draw their own leaves to put the bean "egg" on and they decorated the caterpillar beans themselves as well. I drew the butterfly shape for them to color, decorate and add the bean bodies and helped them wrap the chrysalis bean so it would fit in the space. I love how they turned out and I'm going to use it when we order caterpillars in a few weeks.We finished off with our journals. Miss M has started trying to write in the last few days and does an amazing job for being three years old. I tell her what letter to write and she forms it pretty legibly on her own.
That's it for this week!
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