It was so great to be back after being gone all week. I so missed sweet Ethan and Ryan. Ryan was sick today, so Ethan had to work extra hard given all the one-on-one attention! This week we are learning all about bugs that fly. So to kick off our flying bug week, the touch and feel pool was full of sheets of red construction paper that Ethan tore into strips and rolled into little balls to use later for an art project. We used our fine motor skills to tear the paper, and we talked about all the different sizes of balls that all at the kiddos were making. Today, Ethan preferred to dive into the pool full of paper!
During centers today, Ethan and I worked hard learning our shapes using a puzzle that required us to match and fit the shapes together. I was pleasantly surprised when Ethan verbally labelled circle, square, triangle, diamond, octagon, hexagon, heart, and star. Wow! I think he may have taught some of these shapes to me! Great work at home! Ethan is making incredible progress! We then moved to the easel, and I had Ethan imitate the prewriting circle, horizontal, and vertical strokes. He did a great job with this as well saying "down" for vertical and "across" for horizontal. Ethan was also very interested in using scissors today. I showed him how to hold the scissors appropriately and coached him with the words "open/close" as he opened and closed the scissors. For practice at home, it is easier for children to cut in an upward motion. Tape a piece of paper to a table, and have Ethan sit on the ground so that he is below what he is cutting and see if this helps him be more successful. He was very motivated by this activity and attended to using scissors for a long period of time.
It feels like it has been forever since we haven't had red noses and frozen hands on the playground! Is this weather ever going to end? The rain soaked the playground today, so Ethan and I went on a nature adventure around the block and collected all sorts of treasures. We found acorns wearing "hats," and talked about how squirrels like to eat acorns. We felt the soft, green moss around a tree trunk. We spotted a beautiful rock, which we dug up with a stick, and we found patches of clovers that would satisfy a bunny for days! When we came inside, we glued our treasures to a piece of construction paper and labeled them to show mom and dad at home!
For our language lesson today, we read The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. This book starts off by teaching us that ladybugs like to eat aphids, and aphids are small white bugs that like to eat leaves, which eventually hurt trees, shrubs, and other plants. By eating the aphids, the ladybugs help the trees. A grouchy ladybug in the story starts his morning by not wanting to share aphids with another ladybug. So he flies off in a huff and a puff and every hour tries to pick a fight with insects and animals that get larger and larger as the hours get later and later. In true Eric Carle style there is a great repeating line on each page ("Hey you," said the grouchy ladybug. "Want to fight?" and "Oh, you're not big enough." said the grouchy ladybug and flew off.) As always, we can use this repeating line to stimulate language in our little ones and see if they can fill in the blank when we leave out words. We were also able to target new vocabulary of a variety of insects and animals that are not very common to the typical 2 year old...stag beetle, praying mantis, sparrow, lobster, skunk, hyena, whale...to name a few. We also talked about concepts related to size as I asked the Ethan which insect or animal was bigger...the ladybug or the elephant, the ladybug or the yellow jacket, etc. We used picture cards of all the animals that the grouchy ladybug met, and these cards were sent home in Ethan's book bag. Use these at home and see if he can re-tell the story using the pictures or observe whether or not the pictures stimulate other language related to his day and our ladybug theme. Ethan can also practice clapping the syllables of the insect and animal names on the cards.
After we read the book, Ethan headed to the art table to make his own ladybug. First, he painted a paper plate red. Second, he added a head. Third, he glued on wings and some spots. Last, he stapled pipe cleaners as the antennae. Use these pictures on the blog to see if Ethan can re-tell you the steps he used in making his ladybug.
First, we painted our ladybug red.
Second, we glued on her head.
Third, we added some wings and spots.
Last, we stapled on her antennae.
As usual, we ended our language lesson with the following short videos.
See you on Thursday, as we learn all about bumble bees!
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