Cocoons, eggs and other creatures

It was so nice to feel the warm sun on our bare arms and go to the park in T-shirts. It felt like summer outside and in fact, it was warmer outside than it is inside our classroom. You can see how much fun we had watering the plants in our garden in the park and playing with our friends. We have not had rain for a few days and decided that since water is the main food for plants, flowers and trees, we needed to give our beautiful plants and flowers some water. When the weather is warm we also love mixing sand and water in the sandbox. Miya and Isabelle had so much fun with the water today, they had to change their clothes when we got back to school as they were wet. We had fun during morning circle time because we dramatized a little caterpillar popping out of an egg; the caterpillar crawling; the caterpillar spinning and cocoon and last but not least, a beautiful butterfly creeping out from a cocoon.

We used our Peter Pointer finger and our thumb to make a tiny circle shape which represented an egg; then we made a popping sound with our mouths and our Peter Pointer finger became a tiny caterpillar crawling on our legs. We rolled our arms in a spinning motion just like a caterpillar spinning a cocoon and then we linked our thumbs and made a beautiful butterfly, flapping its wings.

Darren read us the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” and we focused particularly on the butterfly. We had to close our eyes and Darren brought out a huge red canvas butterfly. We looked at our giant red butterfly and compared it with the one in the book. The wings were slightly different in shape. We have already decorated two butterflies with rhinestones and paper circles. Today’s butterfly was really sparkly as we put glitter on it. We loved shaking the sprinkle bottles and watched the glitter come out and make the butterfly’s wings so beautiful. We used brushes to apply starch glue first and sprinkled the glitter onto the starch glue. At another table, we made caterpillar’s by twisting pipe cleaners around markers. Noah was really good at this activity. We glued the twisty shaped caterpillar’s onto our green, brown and blue painted pages which represent the sky, the grass and the soil.

Isabel, Miya, Nico and Noah made cocoons by twisting wire around a “bowling pin”. When they were finished they slid the wire off the end of the bowling pin and made it into a cocoon shape. They then tore brown tissue paper into strips; put glue on the wire and pasted the tissue paper over the wire frame. When it has dried more, they will put more layers on top of one another. Tokutaro and Gento sat on the mat and read books while they were making their cocoons. There little fingers are not adept enough to twist the wire into a cocoon shape however they loved twisting the wire around the markers. They like to learn from those of us who are older as we know so many things and we can teach them.

During free play time, Shelley read us many stories until she said that her voice was really tired. Every time she finished reading one book, we gave her another and another. It was fun.

Thanks for another great day at Ohana.

Love Shelley, Darren, and Kana