Bugs

We stepped back a bit this week.  I let the kids be a bit more creative with free-play art rather than focusing on too much 'learning'.  They of course learn by everything they are doing, but I try to follow their lead and interest.  There is so much to focus on with bugs theme that I still want to have another week where we spend more time with the science and animal studies i.e. parts of an insect, insect vs. arachnid, where different bugs live and what they eat, etc.)  That is going to be later this summer when we do bugs week 2!

For this week:

Playdoh Bugs

The boys especially loved this project.  I love when I find something that can make Ethan hold still. (that is hard to do!) 

Here is one of Gavin's bug creations.  Of course we started building bugs, and then went on to build monsters.  And Gavin's favorite thing all week was making 'ghost snakes'. 

 Pattern Block Bugs

Gavin's caterpillar 

 

The set of pattern blocks I have comes with pictures that you match each shape to.  Because it is more challenging I have saved it for Brielle to do while Ethan is napping.  Now that he is *finally* getting a little bit better about not eating everything, I let him try playing with them for the first time.  He really likes puzzles, so when he tried it with a pattern to match (I didn't get a picture) he loved it!

It was another little-kid success.

Free Art

 I let the kids look at the insects in our book and decide what to make.

Lissy requested to make a blue butterfly.  She colored a coffee filter while I provided the clothes pin body. (we've make these kind of butterflies before). 

Outside Exploration

Mostly we spent a lot of time looking for and at bugs outside.  We found caterpillars (a huge fuzzy one!), spiders, pill bugs, earwigs, butterflies...and lots of others that I don't remember or can't name!

Letter Writing

Brielle really enjoys doing worksheets, so she did quite a few this week.  She practiced capital letters.

and we did our first practice with lower case letter writing, which she did great with.

it is hard to see with the yellow crayon, but this was the first time I realized she could write her name on her own.  (It is a mixture of capital and lowercase). 

Books

The Big Bug Surprise by Julia Gran was a favorite for all the kids.  It has fun facts about bugs that are told along with the story.

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! by Bob Barmer had an audio CD that came with it.  We listened to it over and over and over again in the car.

I was showing the kids a clip on you tube about insects from Life.  We then found this t.v. series that the kids loved!  Each episode is only about 5 minutes long.  The kids thought the plots were very funny.