Fly Swatter Painting and More Buggy Fun!

Fly Swatter Painting

We were lucky to have such lovely weather today so we spent a good portion of our morning outside with painting, lunch, and extended outdoor play.  I dripped "flies" on the paper and they had a bunch of fun swatting the flies.  :-)  Yes, it's messy, that's why we did it outside.  They didn't get as messy as I expected though!  Makes for neat painted papers.  I'm sure we'll be able to use the paper in some sort of project.  :-)

Buggy Sensory Pool

"Easter" grass in our pool.  Bugs, magnify glasses, bug containers, tweezers and whatever else the kids ended up putting in there.  :-)  I wouldn't say this is a favorite sensory material.  They tend to use it for dramatic play vs. any of the typical sensory explorations they usually do.  That's a-okay!

Stomp Boards

I ordered these last year and they are finally in.  Yeah! Early Childhood Connections had some connections.  :-P  They found someone willing to make these stomp boards for us for only $3.50.   You can purchase a stomp board for $25.99 at Discount School Supply.  So, yes!  I took advantage of this and purchased multiple for here and for gifts.  We started out with a couple bug bean bags and they went on to explore with other soft items such as stuffed animals, sponge balls, etc.  They got a lot of use this morning!

Sponge Bugs Basketball

This little basketball hoop is the same brand of the bean bag toss that I pulled the bug bean bags from for the stomp boards.  Soft play, perfect for toddlers and preschoolers indoor use.  Not the most durable but works okay.  :-) 

Leaf Math Mat (Grid Games)

PreKinders

 We also call this Cover Up. The goal is to roll the dice and cover that many spaces until you've covered the whole page. PreKinders has many theme related Grid Games available.   Interesting observation I made, oldest child went from left to right and top to bottom, for the most part.  Younger preschool child just put the bugs anywhere on his board.  The youngest went from left to right but started at the bottom.  :-)  Now my husband would say...well, would probably just think..."So, what."  :-P  This reinforces where I pegged them each in their development.  T. is really taking off, he starts counting on his own but then gets off and then wants us to count with him.  Awesome!  And so proud of himself too.  He's taking his own step up.  One nice thing about having teaching my own kids during preschool is they can definitely go at their own speed all year around.   

We won't get to this as planned but PreKinders also has free Bug Jar Math Printables! Check them out, especially if you have younger preschoolers.   She has a set for sorting by type, color and counting.

Who Am I?

From Kindergarten With Love

 I didn't do it exactly like she suggested.  I do not have the Target bugs and my Planet Earth bugs do not fit the clues so I just laminated her pictures to put on the mats. :-) Might add velcro though. Would help keep the pieces a bit more secure for the younger kiddos.  It was a perfect way for K. to practice her reading and for H. to work on listening, recall, and comprehension.  I also found that a couple just weren't clear enough...one reason being that the color she had on the clues didn't match the color of the bug in the picture.  But that's fine, I just removed those.  I can make a new clue card easily enough.  FYI, if you print these...they aren't exactly aligned so consider that if you are using your paper cutter.  :-) 

I Wish I Were...

This was a song I had in my files.  As usual, the picture uploaded crystal clear and than immediately changes to this blurry image.  Can anyone help me out with this?  Obviously it's changing the quality.  So the song goes like this...

Tune:  If You Are Happy and You Know It
Oh, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.
Yes, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.
I'd go creepy creepy crawly down the hall and up your wall-y.
Oh, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.

 The bugs it incorporated are spider, bee, caterpillar, ant, mosquito, and fly.  I do not know who the original author of the song is.  The kids really really liked it.  I created a little booklet so the parents would have the words also, and it allowed me to slip in cutting on a narrow straight line and tracing letters.  You can download a copy for your own personal use here, if you wish.

Today's Menu:

PB Tortilla Wedges/Yogurt

Raw Carrots

Dried Apricots

Juicy Watermelon

1% White Milk

Ah, the fountain is back in business.  :-)  They are always enthralled with the fountain the first days it's running.  If only Ms. Amber would let them put things inside of it and play with the water there.  :-P

Bugs

In this post you will find that I really don't feel it's necessary to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak.  :-)  There are a lot of free resources available on the internet or from your local library system.  Use them!  I am thinking that I'm going to try to include links to the resources I find myself using most over the next few days/weeks.  We'll see how it goes!

Flying Bugs PreWriting Page

There are many, many prewriting pages available for preschool age children.  However, as mentioned before, there are a few tracing lines that I would like the children to trace/create but can not find those particular lines.  So... I quickly create my own. These are simple...and definitely not professional...but you are welcome to use them if you wish.  They serve our purpose well.  Download here.

Insect Dominoes

Bry Back Manor

Have had these around for years!  With preschoolers we allow any match...so whether the same number of insect or match the insect itself.  We play a game of the dominoes together and then often I put it on the shelf so that they can match them with their friends or on their own.

Color Bugs Booklet

PreKinders

She has black and white and a colored copied of this booklet, along with some other nice booklets!  We've been slipping in color words here and there throughout the weeks so today K. read the book with me, pointing out and underlining the color word.  Great practice!

Buzzing to the Beat

The Mailbox: Bugs theme book

Simply printed out their bug cutouts onto thick paper or cardstock to correspond with the color of crayons I was using and taped them to the top of a crayon.  I was hearing "buzz buzz!" and other buggy sounds at the free drawing paper posted up on the wall today.  Just adding a bit of interest to crayon explorations.  :-)

Busy Bees Fly to the Hives

The Mailbox

The Mailbox: Bugs theme book also had bee and hive patterns and so I added pictures to the wings of the bee to reinforce specific beginning sounds. I've posted about this last May. Wish I could share this document. Though relatively easy to create...it can be time consuming, depending on how much of a perfectionist you are. :-P But it is a Mailbox document so better not. 

The Mailbox: Bugs theme book

Shaving Cream and Cornstarch Sensory Play

inspired by Time for Play

This was something I stumbled on in Pinterest this past week.  It's one sensory play we hadn't tried.  :-)  Definitely interesting.  Not a favorite by any means but  I think the biggest issue was I allowed them to mix the materials together and they didn't give it enough time to get to the dough like quality.   Very globby. So I do think we'll do it again but this time I'll mix it prior to the children playing with it.  I imagine it'll have the consistency of the cloud dough we created.

Ladybug Garden

Simple and easy!  Great for fine motor.  Ripping paper is always a challenge.  We ripped shades of green paper into strips, added red and/or orange do a dot spots for the ladybugs and then added detail with marker.  Tip:  if the child is having a difficult time ripping the paper, consider snipping the paper at the top with scissors so they have somewhere to start.

T. had done the ladybug garden last week when K. was sick so I just put the dobbers and markers out with paper for him.  He spent quite a bit of time here at the table with them.  Loved hearing his talk as he was working.  One thing that I noticed is that his "pencil" grasp has changed.  He didn't "fist" any of the writing tools that were available this morning.  Yeah!

Spider Shape Match

Kids Soup

This was perfect for T.!  He's not quite three but knows his basic colors and most of his shapes.  He still calls a rectangle a triangle and of course, a hexagon is a "stop sign".  Not quite sure why they used hexagon vs. a octagon in this set but that's fine.  :-)  Beggars can't be choosers!  This is just one of the many many printables available through Kids Soup.  As mentioned before, this is the one site I pay membership to.  Awesome resource for toddlers/preschoolers!  Definitely recommend it.

Little Bee Sight Word Emergent Reader Booklet

I let her use the paper cutter instead of scissors today...much to her excitement.)
Little Bee
A little bee
in a little tree
made a little honey
just for me!
Little booklets are awesome for preschool children.  They gain confidence as they become more fluent "readers".  When we send home a booklet we encourage you to have them available and read with your child frequently.  Emergent readers have pictures that correspond with the very simple sentences to help give the child clues about the main word so do encourage the child to look at the picture when they get to the word they don't know.  Many of the emergent readers use High-Frequency Words, which the benefit of learning these belong in a complete post on its own.  This booklet was copied from
High-Frequency Word Booklets
The Mailbox grades K-1

One component that I like about this book is that it's progressive in the sense that they start at very simple one word per page stories to 5-6 words per page.  Hmmm, The Mailbox doesn't carry this book anymore.  :-(  But you can purchase it at Amazon as of today. 

Been an interesting end of last week and beginning of this week for attendance due to illness so we didn't get everything completed for last week.  We are extending our bug themed activities another week as it's a short week this week.  Hard to believe we have so few days left!  Hope you all have a lovely week. 

I Love Bugs! Philemon Sturges

This is such a wonderful book!

I love the illustrations...so simple, so clear. The words are about the actions of the bugs and it introduces so many of them! It's quick and easy to read and a favorite amongst the children. I used it to also discuss the term "entomologist".  Another aspect of the book that I like...

There are two spreads of pages with pictures of bugs and a little tidbit of information about them! I created a BINGO activity using this book as inspiration.

I Love Bugs!

BINGO

The document includes:

6 BINGO mats and call cards, using real-life photos, for each bug. The call cards include pictures/names as well as trivia/names.  Feel free to download your copy here!  FYI:  I created this with toddler/preschool students in mind and so did only a 3x3 board to make it fast paced. 

Bug Venn

We did a Venn Diagram using the hula hoops and stretchy bugs we had on hand.  We sorted spiders, purple bugs and then the middle would be purple spiders.  They love this sort of thing and don't even realize they are learning!  Then to check for understanding about how a Venn diagram works I created a simple cut and paste sheet for them to do during centers.

 

Feel free to download a copy of the Bug Sort: Venn Diagram, if you wish. I added a ladybug magnify glass to provide an additional point of interest.  Definitely was a hit!

Bug Transfer

Using tweezers are great for fine motor. Today I provided stretchy bugs and multiple containers, in case they wished to sort their bugs. These were all dollar store purchases.  They've served us well!

Buggy Sensory Tub

These plastic bugs have such nice detail.  We purchased ours at Toys R Us but I've seen them elsewhere, such as at Amazon.  They are an Animal Planet brand.

Weekly Readers

I so wish there was a way to purchase one of several grades of Weekly Readers. I think that their company would be used by homeschool families if they would allow that.  At this time you have to purchase a minimum amount of each grade. So that doesn't make it cost effective for us home-based programs/homeschool families. But on their end, I can understand that it would be all that cost effective for them to allow that.  I do keep the samples I get in the mail along with the ones that come home from school with my boys. :-)



Bug Balloon Blots

Definitely a process vs. a product project.  Pictures really don't show the pure enjoyment they have with such a simple project.  We started this today thinking that if we printed the balloons first thing this morning...they'd be dry enough to add details before the preschool only child goes home.  Well, they weren't, so we'll finish on Thursday, for him.