Goodnight Gorilla

Last week we had fun reading Goodnight, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. This week an area was set up so they could play with the story and retell it.

The cages are made from shoe boxes with construction paper fronts.
The keys are coloured to match the cages.

Owl Pellet Dissecting

Last week while we were studying owls I brought in a owl pellet.

We talked about different animals that owls may eat.
Then we pulled the pellet apart.

We tried to guess what the animal was. We did a survey and the majority thought it might be a mouse, although there were some feathers in the pellet.
It was a mole.

What if Zebra Lost his Stripes?

Today our animal of focus was the zebra.
I have a book called "What if Zebras Lost their Stripes?"
I drew an outline of a zebra but really it looked like a horse because there were no stripes.
There were two different art techniques to give them back their stripes.

The first was bleach painting. I know "bleach" yikes but using it in small amounts on paper has a magical result.
We used milk jug caps to hold a little bit of bleach and the brush was a qtip. It soaks up the bleach and doesn't splash or splatter.
The children made their marks on the black paper and watched as the colour disappeared.

The second technique was similar to tape painting that we have done before.
The children cut strips of tape and laid them across the zebra (horse shape) on the white paper. Then used black water colour paint to paint all over it. When the paint dried they pulled off the tape.
They enjoyed peeling off the tape. The parents enjoyed the effect it left behind.

Pendulum Painting

I saw this art idea on Teacher Tom's website last spring and have been so wanting to try it.

I found, at Dollarama, plastic soccer nets. I just used the pipes and left off the netting.
Hung a styrofoam cup from the top pipe, with one hole poked in the bottom of the cup. The tricky part was getting the right consistency for the paint.

Zoo Cage Prints

Today we made prints again - it's a favourite activity.
With styrofoam trays we used a pencil to press lines to represent a cage.

We used roller brushes to
cover them with paint.

Then pressed stamps shaped
with animals heads onto the cage.

Owl Babies Reenactment

Almost everyday this week we've read the story Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. It's a fun repetitive story about 3 owl babies who wonder where there Mother has gone.

Today I made 3 owl hats using baseball caps, feathers and cupcake liners. Set them up in the reading corner on 3 seats (representing the branches in the tree).

At story I asked for volunteers to play the roles of the babies and then we told the story.

Our little owls did a great job repeating their lines and at the end when Mother Owl returned they flapped their wings and danced.

Feather Painting

Today at the craft table we used feathers instead of paint brushes.

We used feathers, different size tubes taped together and tubes cut in half to make different marks on owl shaped paper.
The children strokes were very light on the paper.
The parents were able to make marks that looked like feathers.

We wondered what you call a group owls? A flock?
We decided on a family.