Wonderful Waterfalls

Waterfall day was great! It was filled with creative arts activities and pretend play. The MGT craft was super simple, a ribbon wand, and the kids used them right away. Because they didn't take long to make, I had them come to the art table as soon as they arrived, so once finished, they could be used during praise & worship time. I taped together some colored popsicle sticks with blue streamer on the end for the kindergarten kids so everyone would have something to twirl.

I made a playlist of "river songs" for praise and worship, so on waterfall day, instead of gathering on the carpet, I split the kids up by class, and we "danced" along the riverbank, and into the blue "river" in the middle of the room. I even had one student use his ribbon wand to pretend to catch a fish in the river.

I found two really great YouTube videos about waterfalls that we watched. The first one was "Just Around the Riverbend"  from the Disney movie, Pocahontas. It features a river, waterfalls, otters, fish, and a beaver.

The second video was about spectacular waterfalls around the world. At the end of the video, the credits show in what country each waterfall is located. We checked our Global Friends world map to find the general location of each waterfall. I was impressed that Ruby Falls, in my home state of Tennessee, made the list!

We talked about other closer places that they may have seen a waterfall, and reminisced about our field trip last year to Minoh Park, one of Japan's oldest national parks, which has a beautiful waterfall between two mountains.

For dramatic play, we used striped floor mats to create a waterfall over the table, while the rainbow rugs made "dancing" rainbows, and river creatures "swam" through the water fall.

It was wonderful way to learn about waterfalls!

Over The River And Through The Town

There was so much excitement when our new MGT box arrived last week! I could not cut out the laminated curriculum and circle time pieces fast enough. Two girls grabbed the Bible story pieces and used the theme poster as the background for the retelling of "catching the fish". Jesus, "happy Peter", and "sad Peter" were all in the boat together.

I promised to put the new calendar up as soon as I had time to put everything together.They decided to help me put the numbers on, so I made it into a number and pattern recognition game.

They worked together to make a river with our colored plank blocks and filled it up with the "funny ducks" (nativity character rubber ducks) floating down the river, along with some other river wild life.

I had high hopes of going on a field trip to a nearby bug museum and butterfly house, but apparently teachers for 600 other local elementary students had the same brilliant idea on the same days. We opted for a short jaunt over the the river back to sky park for 1/2 the day on Friday. We made observations about the river and the bridges we crossed on the bus ride.

I brought along bubbles and the giant parachute to make connections with the new theme. It was a little bit windy so it was tough to capture photos of children and bubbles at the same time! We were on the look out for bees and butterflies as well. One child reported seeing "big, little, AND medium sized bees".

At one point, while shaking the parachute vigorously, one child exclaimed,"Kairu sensei, it looks like the river!" I was feeling pretty proud that she made that connection without me saying anything at all.

When we returned to school in the afternoon, the kids made their river collages. I had some different kinds of sand, so I allowed them to choose which one they wanted. By the last small group, they had discovered they could mix the sands together to change the color and texture along the river banks. I also gave them a choice of green felt or paper from the scrap bin. For the sake of time, I cut out the grass and bushes, but under the direction of each child (long, short, tall, big pieces, etc.)

The collages turned out so cute, and the kids really thought about what they saw along the river on the field trip and how they could put that in their pictures.

Bees, Butterflies, And Beyond

We just couldn't get enough of the bees and butterflies theme! After we came back from the Golden Week holiday, we still had a few more butterfly days to complete while we waited for the May box to arrive. That gave us time to catch up on unfinished projects, finish our MGT little journals, and do some extension activities as well.

The open-ended watercolor butterfly portraits were a favorite, especially for the teacher! I couldn't pass up an opportunity to be creative with my kiddos. One of my students was quick to identify the butterfly I painted as the Peacock Butterfly, thanks to the picture on the daily topic poster.

I also let them draw bees and butterflies on the white board. Some of them used magnet shapes to trace, and others drew free hand. There were also several abstract portraits of "Kairu sensei" skipping through the flowers.

They used the shape connectors to make caterpillars and flowers for the butterflies to land on. The sticky butterfly toy was great for a little game with the vocabulary builder cards.

I really wanted to do another art project that went beyond the curriculum, and I had seen an idea on Pinterest using wooden spoons and tissue paper to make butterflies. I remembered that we had some little wooden spoons from the Christmas activity pack that we never had time to use, so I pulled them out and let the kids design their own butterflies as a free choice activity. The boys decided they wanted to make caterpillars. They got so creative, and they were so excited about making them! It was a fun sensory project with lots of different textures.

We also did a story extension, in which they chose one of the flowers from "One Busy Bee" and cut out the appropriate number and shape of petals to make it. When they were finished gluing the pieces on, they wrote the corresponding number on the paper, as well.

When we finally made it outside to the park for recess (lots of rainy days), we found some black and white, and tiny yellow butterflies fluttering in and out of the gate. They are such fascinating creatures, and provide endless opportunities for observation and learning.