March 11, 2010

Ms. Laurel is back today. She will be with us full time from now on. We are so excited she is back! Ms. Katie's final day is Friday the 19th.

We had a math graph today.



Ms. Laurel ran a special ladybug math center. We roll a dice, and then put an equal number of spots on a ladybug as dots on the dice. This helps us with our number sense and one-to-one counting skills.



Justin showed us the x-ray of his broken arm. We learned that an x-ray is a big camera that can see inside your body. It was fascinating to see Justin's bone INSIDE his body and connect that to the insect exoskeleton we have been learning about. Justin will soon have a hard cast on that will act just like an exoskeleton to protect his arm!


We became acquainted with our new stick bug friend. We took a vote to decide on the name and we voted on Spiderman.


We held Spiderman, felt his exoskeleton, counted his legs (6) and observed his eyes. We were fascinated by his amazing camouflage.

Naomi's mom visited today and helped us play with our walking sticks!

Some of us drew pictures of Spiderman and other insects.




In atelier Tuesday and today, we played with noodles in the sensory table. We honed our fine motor skills as we used tweezers to pick up individual noodles and our math observational skills as we compared the lengths of the noodles.



We also explored in a new insect terrarium. At first, we couldn't see any insects. Some of us thought the bugs were so well camouflaged that we couldn't find them. Other Entomologists thought they were hiding under the wood and soil. As we dug, we found worms, pill bugs, slugs and ants. We studied each insect. Only the ants were insects, the rest were bugs.



In atelier, we started labeling some big bug posters we made. We labeled "Beetle" and all of the beetle's body parts. We write the sounds we hear and use our alphabet sheets to remind us of how to write our letters.



This afternoon we practiced our writing on the whiteboards.





Remember: Conferences are next week!

March 10th, 2010

Have we been busy lately!

Last Friday, we became acquainted with our new stick bug friend. We took a vote to decide on the name and we voted on Hunter.


We held Hunter, felt his exoskeleton, counted his legs (6) and observed his eyes. We were fascinated by his amazing camouflage.





Some of us drew pictures of Hunter and other insects.




We are still learning about insect body parts. On Monday, we worked on our Insects Have Exoskeletons and Insects Have Compound Eyes poster. We cut out pictures of exoskeletons and pasted them to our poster.

Some of us drew pictures of compound eyes to add to our poster.

Today, we had music with Ms. Shelley. Here is a video of us singing one of our favorite songs about nature.

We continue to sing our Head-Thorax-Abdomen song. It helps us remember the body parts of insects so we can identify them when we find them. Here is a video of us singing about insect body parts.

In atelier today, we played with noodles in the sensory table. We honed our fine motor skills as we used tweezers to pick up individual noodles and our math observational skills as we compared the lengths of the noodles.




We also used the play dough and pipe cleaners to create bugs. Here is a video of Sammy explaining about the insect he created.

We also used the projector to trace insects. As we traced we noticed the body parts of the insects, including head, thorax and abdomen and six legs. We painted our insects and will label them after they dry.

We also explored in a new insect terrarium. At first, we couldn't see any insects. Some of us thought the bugs were so well camouflaged that we couldn't find them. Other Entomologists thought they were hiding under the wood and soil.



As we dug, we found worms, pill bugs, slugs and ants. We studied each insect. Only the ants were insects, the rest were bugs.


This afternoon we started labeling some big bug posters we made. We labeled "Worm" and "crop" on the worm poster. We write the sounds we hear and use our alphabet sheets to remind us of how to write our letters.


It was Hudson's birthday. Happy birthday, Hudson! We love you!

March 3rd, 2010

Today was a very busy day as we started our first official week of learning about insects.

In the Atelier we studied pictures of ladybugs and painted our own ladybugs using finger paints.




We also played with fake insects in the moon sand. We made insect tracks and burrowed our insects in the moon sand.



Yesterday, some of our friends traced big pictures of bugs on sheets of paper and painted them. Today, we helped cut out the pictures and re-paste them to new pieces of paper. We will trace our own bugs later in the week!



During afternoon centers, we looked at pictures of insects. We discussed what we observed about insects with buddies. We noticed that all insects have six legs. We cut out pictures of insects displaying their legs and pasted them to a sheet of paper that says, "Insects have 6 legs."




We also used new 3D insect puzzles with very small pieces. Because the insect pieces are easy to lose, we voted and decided that only 3 people could play with the 3D insect puzzles at a time.

We asked our friends for help finding the small pieces. This center took so much of patience and persistence!

Luckily, we also have 3D bug models to sort and observe!

We also had new compound eye lenses to use. We noticed that bugs see very differently than we do. They can see multiple images at one time, and movement is magnified through the insect lenses.

This is how a bug would see Everett!

Some of wrote very long stories. Here is Nate reading his story.