Let's Eat an Insect!

WHAT!?!?!?  I bet that title got your attention didn't it???  Well, I'll get to the yummy insect in just a minute, but in the meantime look what else we did . . . .

Since we spent Monday talking about St. Patrick's Day, we only had four fun days of insects.  That was okay because we packed a lot into those four days!  We have a REALLY big day coming up in May.  It is our annual Art Show and each month I try and save a very special piece of artwork to display.  For the month of March, we made our "name bug".

SORRY, I have no ideas why this picture is sideways.

 

I know it may be hard for some of you to believe but, yes my students actually wrote their own names!  If you closely you will see that my sweet Sara has a little trouble with her "S" so I make little "dots" for her to follow.  Her S's have some a long way since September and I am sure in another month or so she will no longer need the dots!

 

We spent Wednesday talking about butterflies.  We fluttered and flew all over the place.  By the way, being a butterfly is a wonderful way to walk down the hallway.  After all, butterflies don't make any sounds!  We topped off our day by making some beautiful "squishy" butterflies.

 

The secret to these little beauties is a lot of paint!  The children glob large spoonful's of paint onto one half of the butterfly.  Next, we fold him and squish!  I love to see the children's faces when paint starts oozing out.  We open them up to see a lovely butterfly.  After they dry, we add his/her body and antennas.  The children draw on their own faces and our fluttery friends are ready to go!

All week long we talk about the anatomy of an insect (you know, 3 body parts, 2 eyes, 6 legs, 2 antennas) and on Thursday, we made our very on insects.

 Everyone got to paint their egg cartons any color they wanted.  The children added their own legs and antennas and of course we added some left over sticker eyes.  The each child decorated their insect with different shapes. 

 

Ahhh . . . finally it was our "Fabulous Fun Friday"!  This would be our last day before Spring Break so I wanted it to be very special.  I said "special" right?  Not messy??  Well, guess what?  We got both!  We spent Friday talking about bees!  It was so fun.  Everyone got to "buzz" around the room and up and down the halls.  (Not as quiet as butterflies, but fun no less!)  We even made our very own bees to take home!  First we taped off some yellow construction paper for our stripes.

 

 

Here comes the fun part!  Next, we painted.

 

We stripped off the tape to reveal some very special bumble bees! 

Don't you just love the wax paper wings?

 

Friday means fun in the kitchen so we buzzed and flew down the hall for some science and cooking fun.  Since I had been teasing everyone about "eating an insect", I knew I better start with that!  Here they are . . . .

 

 

That's right, they are made with bananas, pretzels and chocolate chips.  If you closely, you will hopefully notice that they are anatomically correct.  Each insect has 3 body parts, 6 legs and 2 antennas.  Oh, a few actually have "stingers" :)  They were very yummy!

Hang on, I'm not finished . . . . next we talked about our wonderful friends, the bumble bees and how they help our gardens.  We used Cheetos to serve as our pollen.

 

Then we wiped our hands and pretended to be bumble bees spreading the pollen.

 

 



Of course after all of this we were thirsty.  Finally, we drank our lemonade like butterflies!

 

Butterfly's tongues are like straws,  We cut our straws in half and pretended to be butterflies drinking nectar from a flower.

WOW, what a busy week!  I think I NEED a vacation to recharge my batteries. 

Thanks for visiting with us.  I hope you check on us again!

Insect Week!

This past week turned out to be much more fun that I had originally planned!  To a preschool child, insects are either "WOW" or "yucky", but much to my surprise, my class thought they were "WOW"!  Lucky me!  One of my all time MOST favorite books is . . . . .

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

by Eric Carle

 

So naturally we spent an entire day discussing not only the book but caterpillars too!  Everyone had a great time making the very own hungry caterpillar.

 

 

 

Balloons made the perfect round shape!

 

The children used their fingers to make the antennas.

They drew on their own noses and legs.

 



 I think Eric Carle would be very proud, don't you?

 

We also started making our "Name Caterpillars".  This is one of my all time favorites.  Each child counts the letters in their name and picks out that many circles.  Next, they write each of the letters on a circle.  Finally, we get to put it all together, add a head, some legs and . . . . .

 

A close up view of Jon Brook's caterpillar.

WOW, he has a long name!

 

After our caterpillar day on Monday, we spent Tuesday talking about butterflies.  It was really fun walking around the school fluttering like butterflies.  We made beautiful butterflies by putting big blobs of paint on one side of our butterfly cutouts.  Next we folded the paper and squished it.  It was very messy

 

 

We added a cute little thorax complete with an adorable little face and antennas. 

 

Wednesday was so much fun!  We spent the entire day talking about bees!  And yes, we "buzzed" the entire day!  We also made the cutest little bumble bee ever! 

Everyone loved using the tiny paint brushes to paint on the stripes.

 

Thursday was all about ladybugs and of course we had to read The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. 

Again, this is one of our favorite books (to be honest, I am a HUGE Eric Carle fan!).    Our ladybug was not quite as "grouchy".  One student said, "she had already eaten her dinner and wasn't mean anymore!".  I LOVE IT!  



I found a number of great ideas for the using The Grouchy Ladybug on The Official Eric Carle Website.  Check it out for more ideas.

Because of a threat of severe weather, our school day was cut short on Thursday.  (Remember, we are in Central, Alabama and severe weather usually means tornadoes!)  Anyway . . . we spent what little time we did have reading and talking about Eric Carle's book The Very Lonely Firefly .  Again, here are some more fun activities for  The Very Lonely Firefly

 

Friday was spent talking about insects and all their distinct characteristics.  Each child made their very own personalized insects and decided if they would fly, hop or crawl.  We also talked about what their insects liked to eat!



 

 

 

We also "at an insect"!  We headed to the kitchen and put together a yummy insect out of good 'ole 'Nilla Wafers, pretzels, raisins and "I"cing!  YUM!

 

No one seemed to mind eating these insects!

 

Thanks for visiting with us and I hope you stop back by next week - we will be talking about "birds"!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

Ice cream makes me happy!  I don't think it is just me - everyone likes ice cream.  This week's letter was the letter "I" so we made a yummy looking ice cream cone.  I guess you can tell by the picture that the ice cream is our hand print, BUT look closer . . . the children actually cut out the cones themselves and added detailing with a ruler!!!

These were a great way to practice our fine motor skills and we had so much fun using scissors & rulers!  The "sprinkles" were tiny shapes and everyone loved picking out their favorites to go on top their cones.  Now, please excuse me because I just had to share this next picture . . .

Look at his "sprinkles" on top, he said they were "Christmas tree" sprinkles!  FUN!!!

Time to Put on My Big Girl Panties and Deal with IT!

So it has been so long since I have posted.  There is really no excuse EXCEPT for the fact that I have been feeling sorry for myself.  You see, I posted a very simple Thanksgiving project to a website. It was so cute and very, very simple.  It was just a little Pilgrim and an Indian.  The comments were . . . .well, ummmmm . . . oh heck, they were just plain nasty!  First, it seems that I offended some people by "stereo-typing" the Indian.  Then came the lovely BLAST about how our project was nothing but "cookie cutter art".  I will admit that I did cut out the pieces and the children glued every thing down.  They also picked the beads and feathers from a large selection, making sure to pick out "their favorite colors".  It was simple, not the usual "detailed" work that we normal do.  BUT, it was a very nice way to end our VERY BUSY week before Thanksgiving.  AND it gave each and every child a wonderful sense of accomplish.  Well, here it is, you be the judge!

Now that I've got that off my chest, here is a few of the other activities that enjoyed before our Thanksgiving holiday.  We used our handprints to make some Incredible Indians - 

We also used our shapes to make the most wonderful turkey -

Can you see the different shapes?

Our class also was lucky enough to borrow a teepee from one of our families.  It was SO MUCH FUN to use as our very special reading nook.  We even used it as a background in our Indian pictures.  

All in all our Thanksgiving activities were pretty wonderful.  Be prepared . . . here comes our Christmas fun!