Butterflies and Flowers

When we arrived at school on Tuesday we had a big surprise waiting for us.  Our caterpillars had spun their chrysalis.  Four of our caterpillars are now waiting to become butterflies! (One of the caterpillars didn't make it so we had a brief discussion about how sometimes that happens in nature.)

Our story today was a DK nature book on flowers.  Before we read it all the kids shared something they already knew about flowers and we listed them on our whiteboard.  We also discussed the letter F and the sound it made.  We had music with Mrs. Jenkins and worked hard on practicing the songs we'll be singing for our spring sing in May.  After music it was activity time.  

We used the letters from our name to make flower pots!

The kids had fun counting how many letters were in their first name and choosing the flowers they wanted to use!

On Wednesday we made a class terrarium.  We used dirt and pebbles to create a design and then planted 4 different kinds of seeds.  We worked together to create this class garden!  

During activity time Mrs. Chyko helped us use jewels and glitter glue to decorate our terrarium. We also had fun looking through several different kaleidoscopes.


It was so nice on Wednesday we went outside and played for about 20 minutes.

Thursday, we heard the story The Little Seed by Eric Carle.  It tells the story of how seeds grow.  One of our activities today was planting sunflower seeds.  The kids each used a spoon to scoop dirt into a cup, added 2 seeds, covered them up and used a watering can to give the seeds something to drink.  We put the cups on a window ledge to get some sunshine.

Some of our other activities included "the pony center", "the car center" and "the treehouse center".  Mrs. Chyko played a color game with the kids.

It was a little too cold and damp to go outside today.  We learned a new song called "The Boogie Walk" and had fun practicing that!  Here's the link to the music in case your child wants to practice it at home!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArJW1lU0EZE

Last week we had fun creating caterpillars and butterflies based on Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We heard a lot of other books about Butterflies during the week and enjoyed watching our caterpillars as they grew bigger and bigger from eating so much!  

We used balloons dipped in paint to create our caterpillars!

We did squish painting to create our butterflies!

Caterpillars and Sea Creatures!

We've been talking about signs of spring.  Last week we made a chart of what happens in the spring. Each child shared an idea and I wrote it on the board.  Then we read it back together. (As I write their ideas and we read them back the kids love telling me letters that they recognize...most often it's letters that are in their names...I so enjoy watching and listening to the kids as they begin their literacy journey!)  

Ask your child which one is their idea.  When we put it together it created a beautiful poem.

In Spring...

Snow melts, Maple Trees wake up,

Flowers grow, Trees grow leaves.

In Spring...

Rain comes, the grass turns green,

Birds lay eggs, The Easter Bunny comes.

In Spring...

It warms up!

Baseball starts, soccer starts,

We love spring!

During circle time on Tuesday, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  After we read the story, we opened up a box that came in the mail.  It turned out the box had a container of hungry painted lady caterpillars inside.  We put them in our butterfly garden to watch them grow! 

Max was our "Maple Leaf " this week.  His mom came in on Tuesday and told us how much Max likes visiting aquariums and learning about sea creatures.  She brought in a poster with pictures of some of the aquariums that Max has visited.  Then she read us a story called Curious George Visits the Aquarium. After we heard the story she helped all of us make our own aquariums! 

Here we are making our aquariums.  

Here's what our aquariums looked like when we were finished.

Thursday, Max brought in a special snack that looked like an aquarium.  It was blue jello, with Swedish Fish inside and whipped cream on top...yum!!  Thanks Max for helping make our week so special!

We heard some stories about spring and caterpillars on Thursday.  Then we went outside to play for a while...we were all so happy to enjoy the spring weather!!

When we were outside we looked at a pussy willow tree and felt the smooth, furry flowers on the branches.  

Back inside, we went to activity time.  Our activities this week included making a butterfly booklet to help us remember the life cycle of a butterfly, balloon painting to create a caterpillar, using scissors to help a caterpillar "eat" a leaf, playing with cars, building the marble run, playing with play dough, using letter stickers to create designs, building with blocks, and putting together a floor puzzle that had pictures of insects. We had a very busy week!

Eggs, Bunnies and Spring!

The week before spring break we talked about eggs and animals that come out of eggs.   We were getting very excited about our Easter Egg Hunt only to find out that we had to cancel school on Thursday due to an electricity outage at the church!  We tried to notify all the families before arriving at school, but weren't able to catch everyone so we waited at the school.  When we told one of the kids that the electricity was out and school was cancelled, his response was, "Make sure to email the Easter Bunny and let him know!!"  We did!!

We had fun marble painting to decorate our construction paper eggs. 

When we returned to school after spring break, the bunny had left a note telling us that he'd be back on Thursday to leave us some eggs.  We heard a lot of stories about rabbits and eggs this week during circle time.  We also talked about signs of spring and robins.  We watched a video of a baby robin hatching out of her egg.

We went for a spring walk on Wednesday.  We were looking for robins and other signs of spring.  We saw, heard, and felt a lot of spring signs...including raindrops!

One of the signs of spring we saw were worms on the black top.  We talked about how worms help make holes in the dirt so things can grow.  The kids had fun picking up the live worms and putting them back in the grass.  

During activity time we set out several new activities for the kids.  One of their favorites was using shapes and hammers to nail to a cork board.

   Making a picture of a bird.

Making herself going on a walk.  The blue rectangle is the worm she picked up!

Another favorite activity was using blocks to create bird houses for our bird figurines.

I think the highlight of the week was The Egg Hunt on Thursday.  It was cold outside so we went upstairs to the church narthex to find the eggs.  Everyone needed to find 6 colored eggs and a sparkle egg.  So much fun!!