Insects, Spring and Teacher Appreciation Day!

 The children have jumped in to their exploration of insects! "On Beyond Bugs," by Tish Rabe was a fascinating book that we read this week. In this book, they were not only introduced to many different insects, but learned interesting facts such as how they protect themselves and what they eat.

One of our parents told the children a story about what happened when they tried to shoo the many ladybugs out of their windows when they were living in New York City. To protect themselves the ladybugs gave off a quite a smell!

A new favorite during Circle Time is the handshake greeting. The frog of the day takes "Freddie", the classroom frog to a friend. Then they stand and shake hands, as they say good morning to each other. Then the person greeted chooses another friend to greet.

After discovering an insect by the door of the Exploratorium, the children examined it with magnifying glasses. Was this really an insect? Did it have six legs, antennae, head, thorax and abdomen? They inspected it closely to make sure!

On Tuesday the little frogs hopped into the classroom with beautiful flowers, huge smiles and lots of love for their teachers!

And they just kept coming, until the vases could hold no more! :)-

Mrs. Mundell and Ms. Wiltshire could not have felt more appreciated with the precious posters of the children's little faces among the lilly pads, the cards  and flowers. We thoroughly enjoyed the yummy lunches and Starbucks, too! Thank you for everything!!

There were even some gorgeous flowers painted at the easel, as well!

"How did you paint that monster truck?"
"Well, let me tell you! First I..."

In the library last week Mrs. Smay read a book about inspiration. Speaking of inspiration, after one child made a flag in the art center, two others were inspired to create flags of their own.

A little more inspiration was going on as the children built castles with foam magnet blocks.

Still others were inspired as they watched friends add design to scraper paintings at the easel.

After using markers to color tongue depressors for a caterpillar's body, the boys and girls twisted a chenille stem around it to make antennae. Then they glued on pom poms and eyes.

Then they had a caterpillar, the second stage of the life cycle of a butterfly!

In Exploring on Friday the children made a butterfly snack. First they spreaded pink or blue cream cheese on the two triangular pieces of bread for the wings.

Then they added pretzel sticks for antennae, a carrot for the abdomen and jellybeans to make a symmetrical design on the wings.

Observing the parts of a flowering plant was very interesting.

The children pretended to be Eric Carle using rollers, scrapers, bubble wands and combs to create their own designs in cool colors...

and in warm colors!

In the music room with Mrs. McIvor, the children experimented with a new string instrument, the zither.

They also danced to the music with ribbon sticks in many bright Spring colors.

After learning about how the abstract artist, Jackson Pollock, made his drip and splatter paintings....

the boys and girls tried it themselves with lots of enthusiasm!!


Upcoming dates to remember:

4/19  Celebrate the Arts Program and Picnic -11:00
4/22 School Closed/ Hurricane Make - up Day
4/26 Parent Day begins at 8:30 in the Student Activity Center
4/29 Pier Aquarium Field Trip  - leave school at 9:30 return at 11:30