I want to apologize for not getting these last two posts up sooner. We have had back-to-back weekends of family camping and family illness. We're all better now, so here are the last two installments. I look forward to keeping in touch with all of you over the summertime...
Our last week was a very busy one. Although we've been talking a bit about butterflies over the last months, they are such a lovely, fun creature to explore that it seemed perfect to have a butterfly week before our little ones flew off into the summer.
Some of our activities centered around butterfly art. On Tuesday, the children used glitter glue pens to decorate their butterflies; on Wednesday, they were offered more corks and paint for printing--and then folding--the painted butterflies. On Thursday, it seemed right to use up all the paint, and so V suggested cutting out flowers to decorate. She decided to print and fold, print and fold, while J and S were happy with using the corks to "paint" the flowers (less printing action, more smearing). We had some very beautiful creations emerge from this work.
While indoors, we looked at several books which document the metamorphosis of the butterfly, from egg to caterpillar, chrysalis to winged insect. Outside, we looked for caterpillars (none found) and spotted a few white cabbage butterflies in the garden. What was almost more interesting, however, was a bee tree we visited on our walk. Our neighbor's walnut tree is home to a honeybee hive and so we took a peek from a safe distance, watching as countless bees zipped in and out of the hole, noticing too that some bees hovered and waited their turn to go in as the entrance was so busy. In the backyard, we noticed the ladybug larvae hanging out in the plum tree, eating their fill of aphids. We also saw that some of the larvae were very small in comparison to the more mature larvae.
To honor our last week, we made popsicles for all the children. Tuesday was the "making popsicles" day with juice and an old-fashioned popsicle mold. The kids had loads of fun pouring the juice into the holes of the mold and putting the covers on. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons both, we enjoyed not only the popsicles outside, but also a follow-up snack of the yellow peas that we'd grown. I brought a bowl of them in for snacktime as well and they were devoured, but the kids really liked learning how to hold the vine with one hand and to pull off the pea with the other. We checked on our carrots too; they hadn't grown as much as I would have liked, so the root was still white and unrecognizable as a carrot--until they took a sniff of the root. Then we all agreed that it did, indeed, smell like a carrot. (Although no one wanted to try a taste...just didn't look quite right.)
Some other moments during our last week:
Puppy play. J had tied a string onto a car, and the 'puppies' idea from a few weeks ago was relaunched. Before it was over, S and V were busily bringing the puppies everywhere they went, tying them up before using the bathroom/washing hands or moving onto another activity. T, however, was more interested in creating a pulley with two cars, one string and using the grated sides of the milk crates in the block area to hang the string on, sliding the loose car up and down by pulling the string of the other car around the axle of the loose car, then up and down. (If it sounds complicated and thoughtful, well, it was!)
A great dramatic play story was built on the big rug. T used blocks to build quite an interesting, long low structure similar to a dock. He called this "a boat eater, where people can eat". J needed a place for cars to drive, and as T said that cars couldn't go on it, a road was built. Then small bowls were offered as boats and S filled them up with dollhouse people. It was a very busy place.
In the rice bin, T and J worked together to pour a large container of rice into another container, J held the second container close while T poured the first one out.
We played a counting game with our bears and their story mat (this has a meadow, apple tree, forest, pond and cottage illustrated on it). We started with six bears on the mat; each child could roll the dice and move that amount of bears to any places they chose on the mat, and then we counted how many bears were at each spot. This lasted for about two rounds, which was plenty of counting for the children.
V and S work, making long lines with the fruit dominos, sometimes matching them up, sometimes not. Later, S would make another line and call it a 'road'.
Working Cooperatively, once again. V and S were having some difficulty taking turns with a toy. As I was busy getting snack ready, I offered to put it up for a minute and told they could make a plan for how to use the toy and come back to find me, or that I could help them when I was finished with what I needed to do. Surprisingly, on our last day of school, the girls came up to me, so excited. "We made a plan" said V. "S will use it, and then I will." I was both proud and amazed as I watched the girls retrieve the toy and begin to carry out their agreement. What a big step!
It's been such a great session with the children, and I'm looking forward to seeing those returning faces--and a couple new ones--next fall. Have a great summer!
