Baggie Butterfly

 I found clear, self-sealing plastic baggies
and thought they'd be great to use as butterfly wings.

First, stuff small pieces of coloured tissue paper into the baggie.
When you have enough, seal it shut.

Decorate a clothespin to use for the butterflies' body.

Then scrunch the baggies together in the middle. 

Fasten the clothespin.

Add pipe cleaners for antennae and googly eyes

and they are ready to fly.

Colourful Butterfly

We made a version of stained glass butterflies today.  

Using dark paper, hole punches and tissue paper we were able to create a butterfly for the light to shine through.

 

I usually provide single hole punches but they are quite difficult for children under 5 to use.

Instead today we used hole punches of a variety of shapes.

These are used by pushing down on the lever.

They work quite well and allows for independence.

 

The rest is easy.  

Glue pieces of tissue paper over the holes.

Then hold it up to the light to see the colours shine through.

3D Butterfly Collage

We ripped paper today.  Ripped it with purpose.

Interesting the children's reactions to that idea.

Was it okay to rip it?

Where are the scissors?

I think I'll set up a sensory tub with just paper to rip and see what happens.

 

But today we ripped paper to make branches and leaves for our butterfly collage.

We also used tissue paper to make flowers.

Bowtie pasta, which I had dyed earlier, for butterflies.

Corkscrew pasta for caterpillars.

And a few elbow macaroni was found and put to use as bumble bees.

We talked about placement of the leaves and blossoms.

Where do they fit into the picture?

On the branches?  In the air?

I had brought in a branch this morning for another project so brought that to the art table to see how and where the leaves were attached.

Thanks to No Time For Flashcards blog for sharing this art project.

Frog Play

One of the families that come to StrongStart found frog eggs in their pond.

They brought them in for us to observe.

We've been playing with frog activities ever since.

Today, back from after the weekend, we have tadpoles.

Our frog play centre.

It has flies for the frogs to eat.

How many flies will fit in this frog?

This big bullfrog use to make noise whenever anyone came near.

Glass stones, pieces of wood and plants help hide the frogs from their predators.

Today we added snakes to the play.

Water play table includes kitchen scrub pads and frogs.

They leap and hop from pad to pad.

There are flies to count.

And put in jars.

We'll just have to keep that eating frog away from them.

Story - Herbert the Caterpillar

I really enjoy telling this short story about Herbert the Caterpillar who doesn't think he's a caterpillar at all.
Hope you enjoy it too.

Build as Caterpillar Snack

Our weekly special snack.
Read-a-recipe.

Build-a-caterpillar.

Take 3 crackers for the  body.

Spread on cream cheese (I tinted it green).

Add legs.  How many will your caterpillar have?  We focused on a lot or a few.

Add craisin eyes.

Some didn't want 'fuzzy' caterpillars, with all the cheese and broccoli spears.

So they had 'smooth' caterpillars.

A very 'spotty' caterpillar.

Others decided it wasn't a caterpillar at all.

But a ''big monster face".

It was a good snack for counting and descriptive word learning.

Treasure Sand Box

We have started a pirate dramatic play this week.  

And with that we have transferred all the sand to a box on the floor.

 

We replaced all the shovels with shells from the beach.

Painted rocks gold, added doubloons and wooden treasure boxes.

 Even a treasure map in a bottle was found.

The treasure has been dug, collected, counted and reburied over and over.

Today the sand was quite dry so we cleared out everything and poured in water.

While mixing the water and sand we began to make a big pile in the centre.  

Imaginations started to work as the children said what they thought it would be.

- pirate's hideout, mountain, castle.

It was christened with a Jolly Roger flag.

Then began decorating with sea shells.

I really like the sand box on the floor.

So many more children can play around it.

All ages can access it.

Even the frogs found their way to it today.