Duke

Lost River Duke Chandler 8/28/2000-4/22/2010

a quick photo tribute, written post to come

Bug Unit

Last Spring Brady and I did a lot of fun learning/playing about bugs. Here's a quick review. We played our bug band instruments and danced. (This bug band was a present for B's first Birthday and it is still a loved toy.)
I made up a quick and easy game. Think I got the idea from My Montessori Journey. I took a piece of construction paper and cut it in 2, then added flower stickers (4 rows of 3) on each half. Put stickers with 1, 2, and 3 over the dots on a die. Grabbed some bee grahams. Each player simply takes turns rolling the die and then places the correct number of bees on the corresponding flowers. Once your board is full- eat up and then play again! This is great for turn taking and one-to-one correspondence.
We took a trip to the NC Museum of Life and Science, which we frequent since we are members, but on this occasion we really took time to do a little extra learning in the butterfly and bug house.
We read a bunch of great bug themed books from the library. This one is called Remainder of One. I think it's a Math Start book. The basic plot is that there is a bug parade and one little bug is left out of the marching rows. The bugs keep changing the number and size of rows until they all fit evenly. Wow- great math skills! One day we used our dollar store bug erasers to fit each scenario.
We even ate bugs for lunch one day! Spider hot dogs with spaghetti, ladybug apples with peanut butter and chocolate chips and a cheese stick and almond caterpillar. Fun stuff! This weekend we went to a great bug Birthday party at the Museum (the one I mentioned earlier) and had lots of fun learning about and touching some real bugs. I'm inspired to re-visit some of these ideas this Spring, hope you are, too!