Eric Carle Creations: Part Five

Just "Bee"-ing Kids!

Our very last week of the whole year was spent with the last part of our Eric Carle insect lap book.  It focused on bumble bees and it was so much fun. 

We learned all about the different types of bees in a hive, what types of jobs these bees have, and the interesting ways that a bee communicates.  We have a real beehive in our science center, which added so much to this part of our unit.  We also have our end-of-the-year play at this point in the year, which also focuses on "bees"

 (in the form of the eight Beatitudes "Bee"-atitudes.)

The munchkins had fun putting it all together.

And the lap books looked great when they were finished.

During some free time, some of the munchkins chose to decorate a big bee to take home.

We had some fun snacks during this last week also...

One was birthday celebration with a snack that couldn't "bee" any cuter!

And the other was our weekly recipe.

How do we get the wings to stay up?

Who cares!  We're just going to eat them anyway!

To end this fun week (not to mention the school year!) the munchkins were treated to a party day, compete with bee antenna.  It was a celebration of a great year together and a super performance at our end-of-the-year play.

What fun!

And I don't just mean the party...

Our whole year has been super packed with fun and friends.  It's so sad to see if come to an end...

Until next time...

Giggles, 

Mrs. D. 

Eric Carle Creations: Part Four

The Very Busy Spider

After learning about sooooo many insects, it was fun to compare / contrast them to another critter...one that we sometimes mistake for an insect!  

We used Eric Carle's story of The Very Busy Spider as a springboard to this week of activities about creepy, crawling spiders.  We learned all sorts of fun facts about these arachnids:  their special body parts, their eating habits, their life cycle and so much more. 

It was fun to put this week's lapbook together.

And it looked great when it was finished!

We added some extra fun this week creating our own spiders and some cool webs for them to "live in". 

Creating this painted web was a great exercise in following directions and creating lines.  

Then we added a cut paper spider of our own creation.

It looked great when complete.

But even better when we wrote a sentence about it.

These munchkins are such great writers!

We also had a blast making these funny spider hats. The munchkins had to pose with their "fangs" out!

It wasn't all just art and crafts, though. 

The munchkins did some great reading with a pocket chart. It focused on working with the word family "all". 

We also put together a little emergent reader based on Eric Carle's story.  It focused on sight words and reading fluency.

The munchkins also enjoyed this fun activity, in which they added their own "self-portrait" onto a spider body!  Too funny!

They added a speech bubble to finish off this cute activity.

And we had some of our usual Wednesday fun creating a yummy spider.  We did our best to make him accurate, right down to his eight legs and his eight eyes!

What a fun way to get to know these sometimes-less-than-cuddly-creatures!

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Eric Carle Creations: Part Three

The Grouchy Ladybug

After letting our butterflies go, we moved on to a new Eric Carle story: The Grouchy Ladybug.  This little story is a great way to reinforce and master the skill of telling time and to introduce the concept of compound words.  It is also just plain fun to learn about these cute little critters!

We created a lapbook to add the BIG lapbook we are compiling for the whole insect unit.  This one contained all sorts of fun information about ladybugs:  their life cycle, their favorite food, their body parts and a mini book about what insects. 

We learned all sorts of interesting facts for the paragraph that we wrote at the end of the week, too.  (Did you know that a ladybug is "born" with no spots?)

Aside from all that, we spent quite a bit of time learning compound words.  The munchkins had so much fun making their own, even if especially if they were nonsense! 

We played several center games that reinforced this concept.

And we made our own little insect book based on compound words.  It's amazing how many insect names are compound words!

Like...

grasshopper

butterfly

dragonfly

firefly

ladybug

The munchkins had fun reading this one when it was complete...especially reading the pages mixed together to create their one compound word insect names (like butterbug, firehopper, and ladyfly).

The munchkins were quick to pick up on the pattern and sequence that Eric Carle used for the story of The Grouchy Ladybug, so it was fun to use this pattern as a reinforcement of our telling time skills.  Although this story only focused on time to the hour, I have to say, my munchkins are exceptional time tellers.  Many can tell time to the five minute increments, as well as work on elapsed time!  Wow!

We had some fun ladybug clocks to play with...

and we made one to take home, too.

Besides all that, the munchkins had fun making C-V-C words with the ladybug pieces.  Those had to be REAL words!

But what was Wednesday's specialty this week?

It was a ladybug, of course...

Yummy and almost healthy, too!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.