Story Book for May 27, 2009

Our story book for May 27th was How Many Bugs in a Box by David A. Carter. A pop up counting book featuring silly looking bugs.

Art/Language Activity: Caterpillar Stories

This activity was a combination of art and language. For the art part of the activity we gave the children colored circles, crayons and glue. The children glued the colored circles onto their paper to make a caterpillar. They used the crayons to give the caterpillars legs, antennae, and faces. After their caterpillar was complete they dictated a story to the teachers to write down for them.

Story Book for May 22, 2009

Our story book for May 22nd was The Caterpillow Fight by Sam McBratney. In this story some young caterpillars have a pillow fight before bedtime.

Art Activity: Fly Swatter Painting

This is one of our messiest activities. If you come to our classroom, you can see the paint on the ceiling left over from this activity. For this activity we let the children put drops of paint and plastic flies on a large sheet of paper. Next we gave the children fly swatters and let them swat away at the paint and flies.

Story Book for May 26, 2009

Our story book for May 26th was Old Black Fly by Jim Aylesworth. An alphabet book that tells how a pesky little house fly bothers the members of a family.

Whole Group Activity: Sticky Tongues

For this activity we attached velcro to some party blowers and insects. The children pretended to be insect eating animals and used the party blowers as tongues to catch the insects.

Math Activity: Worms and Apples

This was a simple shape matching activity. The children were given worms and apples with pictures of shapes on them. The children had to match the worms and apples that had the same shapes.

Art Activity: Insect Rubbings

For this activity we taped Insect Rubbing Plates to the art table. The children placed paper over the rubbing plates and used paperless crayons to rub over the paper to make an insect picture.

Story Book for May 21, 2009

Our story book for May 21st was Feely Bugs by David A. Carter.  A touch and feel book that features imaginary insects.

Story Book for May 20, 2009

Our story book for May 20th was In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming.  In this book a child discovers various insects and other creature that live in the tall, tall grass.

Art Activity: Rolling Pin Butterflies

For this activity, we gave the children paper cut into the shape of a butterfly and some paint.  First the children placed some drops of paint on their paper.

Next the children folded their paper in half and used a rolling pin to flatten out the paper and spread the paint around the inside of the paper.

Next, the children opened their paper to reveal the beautiful colors of their butterflies.

Story Book for May 19, 2009

Our story book for May 19th was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  The story of a little caterpillar who eats his way through the story until he finally transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Math Activity: Bug Locks

This was a simple matching game that incorporated lots of fine motor practice.  The children had to find the lock and key with matching insect pictures.  Once they found a match, they had to use the key to unlock the padlock to reveal what was inside.

Art Activity: Spider Webs

For this activity the teachers gave the children pieces of laminating film, lengths of yarn, and a mixture of school glue and liquid corn starch.

The children dipped the yarn in the glue mixture and then arranged them, like a spider web, on the laminating film.

Next, the children sprinkled glitter on their spider webs.

They glued on a little plastic spider to finish off the web.

After the artwork was dry, we displayed all of the spider webs on the art bulletin board.

Story Book for May 18, 2009

Our story book for May 18th was Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk.  The story of a spider who wants to have some friends over for a tea party.  However, the insects that she would like to be friends with are scared of her out of fear she will eat them.

Story Book for May 15, 2009

Our story book for May 15th was The Car Washing Street by Denise Lewis Patrick.  People in a neighborhood wash their cars, have a water fight, and share a great treat on a hot summer day.

Story Book for May 14, 2009

Our story book for May 14th was The Wheels on the Bus by Annie Kubler.  A version of the classic children's song.  In this version the riders on the bus are headed to a birthday party.

Language Activity: Land, Sea, Air with Transportation

For this activity we had the children sort modes of transportation by where you would most likely see them in action.  

Art Activity: Class Train

For this activity the teacher first cut out different train car patterns from paper.  We had box cars, tank cars, cattle cars, an engine and a caboose.  The children selected which car they wanted to paint.  After all the cars were painted and dried, we connected them together to make one long train.

Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the train put together this time.

Story Book for May 13, 2009

Our story book for May 13th was Inside Freight Train by Donald Crews.  This book is basically the same as the original Freight Train book, but with this version the children get to see what is inside the train.

Art Activity: Key Chains

The children made their own key chains for this activity.  We gave them some string and various beads to make the key chains.  After they were finished stringing the beads, we attached them to some old keys.  The key chains made a great pretend item for the kids to use.

Story Book for May 12, 2009

Our story book for May 12th was Alphabeep! A Zipping, Zooming ABC by Deborah Pearson.  From ambulance to zamboni, this alphabet book talks about transportation vehicles from A to Z.

Art Activity: Cardboard Truck Painting

For this activity the teachers made a truck from cardboard boxes, and the children painted it.  After it was dry, the kids played with it in the dramatic play area.

Story Book for May 11, 2009

Our story book for May 11th was This Truck by Paul Collicutt.  This book shows a large variety of trucks and explains what jobs they do.