Going BUG-gy in Pre-K!

We've gone buggy in Pre-K! We've been learning about bugs, insects, creepy crawlies and pond life. We found a lot of useful information with "kid friendly language" on the Scholastic Teacher webpage, Going Bug-gy! Facts and Fun About Insects.  Ms. Frizzle from the Magic Schoolbus explains the difference between bugs and insects:

Question: What's the difference between bugs and insects? 

Ms. Frizzle: Insects always have three body parts and six legs. They usually have four wings and two antennae. Now most people call spiders, bugs. But they are not insects, because they only have two body parts and eight legs with no wings or antennae. They are really arachnids. So bugs usually refer to anything that is creepy crawly. And "insects" is a more technical term.

We learned about the life cycle of the caterpillar.

One of our small group activities was to have the children trace, cut and glue circles with letters of their names to make a "Name Caterpillar".

Jake

"Look, I made a pattern, too!"

Mia W.

We found this caterpillar drying, with a toy friend to keep him company. Jack didn't want him to be lonely!

Jack

One of our classmates brought this cool bug viewer/magnifier for us to use.

We also had a wonderful speaker come to talk about bugs. "Aba", Mia M.'s grandfather, owns a local exterminator service. He was so sweet and very patient, and answered all the questions the kids could muster. He also brought a few books to share with us and left one for our library! 

Thank you Aba! It was wonderful of you to come! The children really enjoyed your visit!
Mia M.'s mom made "dirt cake" aka "dirt and worms" for us to enjoy for snack. It was delicious!!!!

Our final activity was to share bug facts we recalled from our unit. I recorded the responses on a black dot and we placed them on a ladybug!

note: During our unit, we made lots of creepy crawlies in our art center. Look for pictures in a separate post!

A Foot Book.....or two!

I meet monthly with a group of teachers to share ideas. I recently heard about a class book one class planned on making during their Dr. Seuss unit. I loved the idea and decided we could make our own version.

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The kids chose the color and design--my challenge was to try to turn their foot into whatever they wanted! Some came out pretty good, some...not so much. After I finished the Gator foot, I could clearly "see" the shape of the snout in the foot shape, but I'd already make the foot the entire alligator. Live and Learn!

It's funny, when you hear about an idea without actually seeing it it often comes out very different than you imagined. These are the finished pages from my friend, Mrs. Amber's Foot Book.

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Frog Fun!

We've been really enjoying our unit on pond life. There is so much to cover: frogs, ducks, bugs, life cycles...whew! We have a variety of frog materials and several frog math games in our classroom, so incorporating frogs into the curriculum is pretty easy. We talked a lot about frog life cycles, but I just couldn't seem to find a cute life cycle craft for frogs. (I plan on working on this as one of my little summer projects.) Here's a great Frog Life Cycle Mat from Communication 4 All.

We made these cute frog puppets by simply folding green construction paper.

I put some cute shallow serving trays in the bottom of my sensory table and filled them each halfway with water.  We added some fun foam cut in lily pad shapes and some small frog manipulatives. The children squirted the frogs with water bottles and moved the frogs all around the pond.

Some of our favorite frog books: