Butterfly Flutter By

 

A couple weeks ago, we studied butterflies and caterpillars. We started by adding some caterpillars and white yarn in our sensory table. I was excited to offer this center for some really great eye hand coordination and fine motor skills, but I wasn't sure if they would like it. It turns out, they loved it!

Pre-K 2 began an art project that turned out super adorable.

They stamped their hands....

Then Ms. Rhonda added a picture of them to their hand stamped wings. I LOVE these!

In Pre-K 1, we made symmetry butterflies by adding paint to paper, then folding it in half and squishing it~!

The peas loved the squishing part.

We let them dry, then turned them over where we had traced a butterfly shape and cut them out.

Next, we added sentence strips and we wrote "butterfly flutter by". They loved the sound of the rhyme and experimented saying it fast and slow.



I think they turned out wonderful! This is the time of year that you can really see their sweet handwriting really evolving. 

Pre-K 2 journaled about butterflies.

They also did a sequential caterpillar art/math project. It involved writing numbers, then gluing them in order from one to ten.



After writing their numbers, coloring the circles, then cutting them out, they glued them onto construction paper to make a big caterpillar!

Pre-K 2 made shaving cream/food coloring butterflies to hang from our tree and ceiling.

Ms. Angela helped scrape the shaving cream off!

Here's a colorful butterfly!

Pre-K 2 also made butterfly hats out of sentence strips, pipe cleaners and construction paper. Ms. Courtney dropped by to help as she often does, we love having her visit!

The kids cut out their own wings, then decorated them with dot daubers. They love those daubers, I sometimes forget how much they enjoy using them. 

Ms. Courtney love!

I think the wings turned out looking sort-of elephant~ish, but the peas loved them. They wore them ALL day.

Here's some more butterflies. I love the crooked antennae.



The best part about centers like this is that they are fairly independent. The peas love it when we give directions, then allow them freedom to express themselves in their art.

We spent a lot of time talking about the parts of a butterfly, and specifically the peas were interested in the proboscis. Butterfly proboscises are slender, tube shaped feeding structures. The proboscis works like a straw through which a butterfly drinks it's food, it is especially well adapted for reaching into flowers for nectar. In this picture you can see the proboscis pretty well:

Now here's our little butterflies using their proboscis to drink nectar from a flower:


These butterflies also had donuts, so not totally accurate, but definitely totally adorable.

It was a success!

Next, Pre-K 2 did some caterpillar measuring!

They also got busy writing by making a sight word caterpillar! First they practiced writing their sight words on white boards.

Love that handwriting!

Then they each added a sight word they knew to a circle to make a "word" a pillar!

To wrap up the week, we decided to get crazy and cocoon some of our peas. It was an easy and giggle filled activity. I wrapped them in toilet paper and then they broke out of their chrysalis. Here's a few pictures of our cocoon making and breaking:



She was so still for this!

Here she's breaking out of her chrysalis...

It's hard work!

Now she's flying away!

That wraps up our butterfly week. Hope your week has been as colorful as ours always are!

Easter Fun with our Peeps!

 

Last week we did tons of fun spring and Easter activities. We got started with this morning message coloring Easter eggs!

I found an amazing site on Pinterest called Pre K and Sharing that had free activities to print! They have so many freebies they share, you can check the spring one out here.

I chose several things to use, all based around the book The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. It is a sweet tale of a mother's love for her baby bunny. The children were delighted to see that in the final pages the room from Goodnight Moon is featured. Love it! We started by working on our handwriting by labeling a bunny.

Part of this packet included vocabulary words that children could find in the story or re-build themselves. The peas did this at our literacy center, and they did a great job!



The last part of the packet I used was a really cute number game. We hid a bunny behind one of the crocuses, then guessed where it was by giving clues about what number the bunny was hidden under. Such a clever game! We would give clues like, it is under the number that is three more than 18....The peas LOVED this game as you can see!





I really love seeing them begin to work independantly at this point in the year, playing with eachother and learning. It's so awesome.

Ms. Rhonda planned for her kiddos to make bunny rabbits, so PK 2 got busy cutting out their bunnies.

They also made an easy reader to practice reading!

Easter wouldn't be complete without some jelly bean sorting and graphing...



We also did a fun activity with jelly beans about predicting. We blindfolded our friends and then gave them a jellybean to eat. They predicted the color of the jellybean by the taste.

Partners fed eachother jelly beans!

We recorded our prediction and the correct color of the beans by coloring them on morning message. Look at their faces, so sweet!

PK 1 did an art lesson about painting rabbits. We read some rabbit books and then I had the peas use magnetic shapes to create a rabbit. This helped them have an idea of how to start their paintings.

Love how this pea thought of a circle and triangle for her rabbit!

 

They did these all on their own and I think they did an outstanding job!!!

Later, we added details with oil pastels and google eyes.

Here's one finished product!

Here's a lot of them. So adorable!

 

PK 2 made these incredible Easter eggs from food coloring and shaving cream. They are so beautiful.



We also made some Pinterest inspired Eggs using painter's tape. I love projects like this because we create a "messy table" and let them do the projects on their own. 

Cutting out his egg...

Here's a few finished, they turned out pretty cool.

 

Next we read this story:

Then we drew some creatures that hatch from eggs.

One morning Pre K 1&2 helped me set up this sorting center. We used the book to sort creatures that lay eggs and creatures that do not lay eggs.

Next, we read The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick and painted chicks! Their hands were the wings.

Some peas used the beak as a nose and made their chicks very happy.

Both rooms added eggs and grass to the sensory table for some sensory fun.



Pre K 2 got started on their morning party Thursday.

They had snacks and fun!

They even did a morning Easter Egg hunt!





While Pre K 2 partied, Pre K 1 got started on their Peep Day! I got this awesome unit from TPT. I had to modify some of her activities to make them appropriate for our little ones, but it was a FUN day! During circle time the peas got to choose an egg from the basket. Our morning message told us that certain colors were baby boy chicks and others were baby girl chicks. We explained that you don't get to choose what kind of baby you get! It's a surprise! They were so excited to choose their chick and see what it was.

It's a boy!

At art we made nests for our Peeps.

Then we filled out their birth certificates. They got to name them and record information about their baby Peeps.

Here's one birth certificate. Ummm...adorable!!

Ms. Molly was the registrar, so she signed off on each baby chick's birth certificate. It was really sweet, she examined each chick and congratulated the new parents.

 They talked about getting to go to Ms. Molly's office for the rest of the afternoon!

We carried our Peeps around all day.

We read to them,

built elaborate houses for them,

and took them to the carpet for story time.

At the end of our Peep day, we made Peep s'mores. And no, not with our baby chicks! 

Yum!

They were a hit.

We wrapped up the afternoon with more egg hunting,

then checked our goodies to see what we got!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend! As April arrives I can't believe how fast the year has gone by! We are entering that bittersweet time of year...preparing for our Pre-K graduation! Ms. Molly has been putting together a Red Carpet/Oscar theme that is sure to be spectacular! Look for more details to come!