IKEA Leaves

We have had IKEA leaves in our classroom for years.  We use them for instruction all the time. This week they were home to caterpillar and butterflies.

Eggs have been laid.

Caterpillar hatched.

Caterpillar ate and ate and got bigger!

Caterpillar turned into a chrysalis.

Another egg hatched. Still waiting for the chrysalis. 

Wow. The butterfly emerged from the chrysalis.

Pattern-Pillars

What do you get when you cross butterfly week with a lesson on patterning ?

 Pattern-Pillars of course!!!

These are fun and easy.  Cut out lots and lots of 1" circles of all colors.  A punch gets the job done pretty quickly. 

Adding machine tape was the perfect background.   Last year the kids picked their length and each tried to outdo the other. This year we decided the length and it was still even too long for the attention span of some. 

We worked in groups if two. Each child choose 2 colors and started gluing them down. 

The heads were random circles left over from another project   They added sticker eyes and drew a mouth. The mouth was supposed to be big so he could eat a lot!  Some were pretty funny. 

Then they climbed all over the door trying to eat the vine.

SKILLS INVOLVED: deciding 2 colors, gluing, patterning, drawing a mouth, following instructions, fine motor

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year later in the school year with longer strips of paper and more complicated patterns.  It is always fun!

RECYCLE FACTOR:The circles were cut from scraps.  The adding machine paper was a donation.  The heads were leftover from another project.  The vines on the door were left from the monkeys. 

Thankful Thursday

Truly a miracle of God's creation. 

A big fat caterpillar at 10:30

A beautiful - and beautifully camouflaged - Chrysalis at noon !!

What a way to end our week!

Painted symmetrical butterflies

These painted butterflies were so much fun to make. 

The papers were pre-folded to help the process go more smoothly. 

The kids squeezed paint onto one side of the paper.  We carefully folded the paper in half again. 

The kids squished and pressed and rolled to make sure the paint passed to the other side of the paper. 

When we opened it up "Ooh. Aaah."  Amazing!

After it dried we folded again and cut it into a butterfly shape. 

Open up again and ....

These will go in our growth chart garden!  

A Traffic Violation

Today we had a traffic violation.  It was the first violation of the school year, so this seems like a good day to tell you about our stop light.

We use a stop light to help monitor the discipline in the classroom.  Each child has a clothespin with their name on it.  The clothespins start on GREEN each morning. 

If there are any problems/incidents/infractions that cannot be corrected with some reminders or redirection, the child's clothespin moves to YELLOW.  From yellow the child is able to make better choices and move back to GREEN, which is frequently what happens.  If they don't move back to GREEN then we let the parents know what happened including the decision to not improve.

If the behavior is extreme they can go right from GREEN to RED.  Or if it escalates once they are on YELLOW, the clothespin goes to RED.  On RED, the child must go spend some "quality time" in the director's office and hopefully learn about making better choices.  The parent is notified.

For the most part this system works in our classroom of 3-year-olds.  Most of it depends on our consistency in enforcing the classroom rules.  The traffic light is very visual, very familiar and very easy.  Just the thought of getting on YELLOW is enough to keep most kids well behaved and that's what we want.

Thankful Thursday

Things are all out of whack this week. Medical emergencies will do that to you.  So it is really Friday.  

We are thankful for bodies on the mend and that class went smoothly this week in the midst of everything else. 

What Can You Do With Paint Cards?

To strengthen scissor skills we got a handful of paint cards and let the kids at them!!

The color of the week was yellow!

They had a great time.  The thickness of the card makes it easy to hold.  The cutting line is obvious - although sometimes a lofty goal. 

We are wondering if the local hardware store will notice huge chunks of colors missing each week!

We are also trying to figure out how to convince the paint company to just send us a box of cards!!