Spring is here!!! We are learning about a variety of life cycles in our Pre-K class and reading lots of great books about animals that come out in the Spring. One of the favorite units is our unit on Pond Life, which includes all the animals found around a pond, especially frogs! This week, we are reading two versions of the same story about the Wide Mouthed Frog. Although the stories vary a little, essentially the story is about a frog that goes around telling smaller creatures that he has a big wide mouth and will eat them. Eventually, he comes across something bigger than himself and discovers he is the desired meal time snack! ***This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Little Illuminations is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.*** The Big Wide Mouthed Frog by Ana Martin Larranaga is a favorite in our class! The kids love to help tell the story by chiming in with the repetitive portions of the text!
Wide Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner is one of my favorites, because it is set in the Okefenokee Swamp, which is located in Georgia and Florida, so it includes creatures my students are familiar with. The kids love it because it is a pop-up book, and what kid doesn't just love a pop-up book?
We made our own wide mouthed frogs, using construction paper and paper plates.
If you have a favorite Wide Mouthed Frog story that you love, please share it in the comments!! **This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. little illuminations is a participant in the Amazon Srvices LLC Associates Program, an affliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. **
We've been learning about oviparous animals as part of our Spring activities. We talked a lot about animals that hatch and played some fun games where we pretended to be animals hatching from eggs. We also read some wonderful books about eggs, including "Chickens Aren't The Only Ones" by Ruth Heller.
I got a few toy eggs (a chick, a duckling and a turtle) that hatch in water and we put a new egg in each day. I wanted them to wonder, guess and talk about them as they observed, so I hadn't told the children what animals were in the eggs. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't hatch as planned. The eggs were supposed to hatch within a day or two, but when we left for Spring Break, only the chicken egg had hatched so far. I'm sure the School-agers using our room during the break will take them out and save them for us when we return next week.
The teacher (Ms. H) that uses my room for the School-agers saw a neat experiment on Pinterest and decided to try it with her kids. She read that if you place a raw, shelled egg in vinegar, the vinegar will eat away the shell and leave an egg that is almost translucent, contained within the membrane. The white foam at the top of the cup is actually the disintegrated exterior shell.
I planned on just observing her eggs, but my mom mentioned that they had some brown eggs, and a chicken that had been laying double-yolked eggs, so I brought a few in to compare them.
We watched as the vinegar bubbled around the shells. You could really see the shell in the water with the brown eggs.
A day or two later, we were able to see some of the inside of the egg. The outer layer still had to be scraped a bit to make it easier to see inside.
When the egg broke, the membrane could be pulled off. We observed that it was soft and pliable, but when we let the membrane dry out a bit, it hardened and became brittle. It was a very interesting exploration.
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We've got some really great bulletin boards this spring in our school, so I thought I would share them in case anyone needs a little inspiration.
This board for Earth Day is in its beginning stages. I'm sure this will be a work on progress as Earth Day (April 22nd) approaches.
A few sunflower window decorations made from paper plates...
I love this simple illustration of the cycle from seed to plant.
This is one of my favorite bulletin boards of all times, illustrating various life cycles.
This was our Spring board last year. It was so cute, and the parents loved it! After we took it down, we added the bunny ears pictures to our yearbook pages, so the parents could treasure their little "bunnies" forever!
I'm so thankful to have wonderful co-workers who allow me to come in and gather inspiration from their classrooms. I love sharing the ideas I see in their classrooms with you here on little illuminations!
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This week, we learned all about bugs and pond life as part of our unit on Spring. This is such a fun unit to teach~there are so many great books, songs and activities to do with the unit. One of the hardest things is figuring out which great ideas to use. There are so many and there just isn't time to do them all!
This week, I set out a variety of art materials and asked my friends to make a bug using whatever materials they chose. I expected the friends to use the pipe cleaners as one material, but many made bug sculptures made solely from the pipe cleaners. Coffee filters and tissue paper were particularly popular, as well.
A dragonfly and a butterfly
A spider
Unknown species
A ladybug
Coffee filter and pipe cleaner butterfly
The ever popular tissue paper butterflies
I have this really cool book, "Learn to Draw DoodleBugs" that has a little story and step by step diagrams of how to draw each bug. Each morning, I posted the steps on one of our whiteboards. Yesterday afternoon, we bound each child's bug drawings in a little book for them to take home.
Buzzy Doodle bumblebee
Anty Doodle ant
Zoom Doodle dragonfly
Leggy Doodle spider
Flutter Doodle butterfly
Our name caterpillars turned out really cute, I think, and were great for learning left to right patterns of writing, learning the letters of our names and fine motor practice. I laid out different sized plastic lids for the friends to trace around and cut out. Once cut, the friends put one letter of their name on each circle to form the name caterpillar.
As we studied life cycles, we made paper plate representations of the life cycle of a caterpillar in small groups. Some of the groups used art materials and others used pasta. I'm not sure which ones I like better!
Late this fall, some of my students found a cocoon on our playground. After some research, we discovered that some species "overwinter", which means thay are in the cocoon state for an extended period of time. We are waiting and watching to see if anything will come out. About 2 weeks ago, the friends found another cocoon, so weadded that to our butterfly pavilion as well. As I was trying to take a picture, I took the cocoon out to get a better shot. It was rocking a little on the paper I used as a background. I figured it was probably due to the uneven stem, but as I held it in my hand, I could fell lots of movement in the cocoon. I have to say it really freaked me out for just a minute! I hope this means we'll have transformation soon!
We also learned about the cocoon,chrysalis and pupa debate. I've done a little research and will be writing a post soon about this.
We read some fantastic books with this unit. Here are a few of our favorites:
We sang lots of songs~there are so many good children's songs like the "Eensy Weensy Spider", "I'm Bringing Home A Baby Bumblebee" that are traditionally sung in preschools everywhere. As an added bonus, I received Deborah Stewart's new CD, "Simple Songs for Preschool" in the mail this week. I was thrilled to discover "There's an Ant" on the CD. It became an instant favorite. Check it out:
I highly recommend the CD. The songs are simple, easy to sing and just downright fun. My students love them! You can check out "Simple Songs for Preschool" and order from the "Little Fingers That Play" site.
I'd love to hear what you are doing in your bug unit!
