Aug. 26, 2005
Insect/Spider 5 Day Plan

Posted in September Unit Studies

Monday
Math - Ladybug game
Reading - bugs and insects, eric carle,
Science - bug/spider anatomy
Crafts - ladybug necklace
Misc. - scavenger hunt

Tuesday
Math - Bug walk/graph
Reading - insects, insects work together, i know an old lady
Science - types of insects
Crafts - paper mache insects
Misc. - grasshopper jump

Wednesday
Math - Tarantula game
Reading - spiders, spiders lunch, little miss muffet
Science - types of insects
Crafts - make spider web, tarantula
Cooking - curds and whey
Misc. - relay race, little miss muffet pages

Thursday
Math - busy bugs
Reading - dangerous insects
Science - fruit fly
Crafts - wasp chamber
Cooking - buzzy bees & ants on a log

Friday
Math - map
Reading - insects, eric carle
Crafts - jumping grasshopper
Cooking - Bug cake
Misc. -  Bingo

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Aug. 25, 2005
Asia 5 Day Plan

Posted in September Unit Studies

Monday - Panda
Crafts - Panda craft, color map of Asia
Math - file folder games, math workbook
Science - cut out pictures of asian people, make paper, look at the panda cam
Reading - Asia, Tiki-tiki-tembo, Ancient China, reading lesson

Tuesday - Tigers
Crafts - tiger puppet, color coloring page
Math - file folder games, math workbook
Science - wild thing
Reading - Where the wild things are, wildlife, nepal, tigers

Wednesday - Cobra
Crafts - paint coloring page, make snake from tie, paint japan flag
Math - color patterns on snake, math workbook
Reading - Japan, scary animals, reading lesson
Cooking - Japanese lunch

Thursday - Leopard
Crafts - make patterns from potato prints, color page, fill in spots
Math - go on a pattern hunt, math workbook
Reading - How many spots, China, reading lesson

Friday - Yak
Crafts - color page, build great wall of china
Math - math workbook
Reading - reading lesson
Cooking - Canton Corn Soup

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Aug. 23, 2005
Neighborhood - 5 Day Plan

Posted in September Unit Studies

Another schedule for a week of preschool.  On nice days, take walks around the neighborhood and visit stores/bank etc.

Monday - Firemen/Policemen

Science - water experiments
Crafts - Fire collage, fire painting
Cooking - Fire truck cookies
Math - do pages in book
Misc - fire safety
Reading - Firefighters, police officers, community helpers, do a reading lesson

Tuesday - Grocery Store
Math - play grocery store, work with money flashcards
Crafts - 3 men in a tub craft, baker TP roll craft
Cooking - bake some muffins
Reading - Rub-a-dub-dub, Richard Scarry, do a reading lesson

Wednesday - Post Office
Math - Mail Carrier
Crafts - make a mailbox out of cardboard box, make stamps, mail letters
Reading - Richard Scarry, Mail Carriers, do a reading lesson
Misc - Work on learning her name and address and phone number.

Thursday - Bank/Restaurant
Math - matching game, play with money cards
Crafts - Make traffic light, play with cars, make a menu
Cooking - help with dinner - play restaurant
Reading - do a reading lesson
Misc. Get play money and checkbook/atm - play Bank

Friday - Library/Garbageman
Math - draw map of the neighborhood, math pages in book
Science - make compost piles with different types of items.  Watch how they decay.
Crafts - paint coloring sheets
Reading -community books, librarian, garbage, do a reading lesson
Play Bingo to review

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Aug. 23, 2005
Africa - 5 day plan

Posted in September Unit Studies

Another schedule for a week of preschool.

Monday
- Ostrich
Color the map of Africa, look at it on Google Earth.
Paint the ostrich coloring page.
Math - Ostrich eggs. 
Reading - Africa book and Ostrich book, zoobooks, Do a reading lesson
Crafts - African Drum
Science - listen to sound of an ostrich.  Watch a video clip of it running.

Tuesday - Hippo
Color coloring sheet with markers
Math - do pages in math book - practice writing numbers
Reading - Hippo books, Do a reading lesson
Crafts - texture paint
Music - listen to African music
Cooking - Sweet Potato Cookies
Science - listen to sound of hippo, watch a video on Africa

Wednesday - Cheetah
Color coloring sheet with pastels
Math - Jaguar Spots, running like a cheetah & measurements
Science - animal coverings, listen to african languages
Reading - cheetah books, animal camouflage, zoobooks, Do a reading lesson
Crafts - Rain Stick
Cooking - Cheetah cookies

Thursday - Elephant
Color coloring sheet with crayons
Math - pages in math book
Science -  listen to sounds of an elephant.  Make habitat.
Crafts - using salt dough recipe, make some elephants - bake and paint them.
Cooking - Ginger Root Beer
Music - fingerplay, play along with rain stick and drum to african music
Reading - Elephant books, Do a reading lesson


Friday - Zebra
Color coloring sheet with colored pencils
Math -
Zebra matching game
Reading - Zebra books, Africa book, Lion and the Mouse, Do a reading lesson
Crafts - stamp with rubber stamps
Color a map of Africa again, and mark where the various animals live.
Review the week.



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Aug. 21, 2005
Insects/Spiders Unit Study

Posted in September Unit Studies

Another preschool unit study.  A lot of these ideas I got off of a very well done insect unit study I found online.  I printed it off a few months ago - I can't find the site again, either.  If I come across it, I'll post it.  I hope I can find it - it was great - color coded and everything.

Some tips from doing this one:  Don't use Elmer's glue for the ladybug necklace.   It's too easy to rip the felt out of the caps.  If you're going to do the paper mache insects, it is a week long project.   Fun, but a long project.  And you'll need to use sturdy glue to glue them together.   I also used toothpicks in between each section to hold it together better.  For the bingo cards I made, I made them 1 inch by 1 inch.  I should have done 2 inches square instead.  And the puff paint spider web wasn't that cool.   The puff paint bottle was hard for the kids to squeeze, and when it was all done....it was cool to touch since it was dimensional, but the paper was flat.  I had been picturing the paper a bit more dimensional along the folds, but it wasn't.   So nothing spectacular there LOL.


Reading

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Little Miss Muffet
Eric Carle insect books
Bugs and other insects / Bobbie Kalman & Tammy Everts J 595.7 K
Dangerous insects / Missy Allen, Michel Peissel J 595.7065 A
How insects work together / Jill Bailey J 595.7156 B
Insects / Anna Claybourne J 595.7 CLA
Insects, bugs, & art activities / Steve Parker & Polly Goodman J 595.7 PAR
Spiders, centipedes, and millipedes / Sally Morgan J 595.44 M
Spider's lunch : all about garden spiders / Joanna Cole J 595.44 C

Math
Tarantula's Bananas
Duplicate tarantulas and bananas.  Color, laminate and cut out.  Have her match the number on each tarantula to the correct group of bananas.

Ladybug Game
Duplicate 5 copies of ladybugs, and number 1-15.  Color, laminate, cut out.  Have her look at the number on the back of each ladybug, and then place the correct number of black beans on the back of each ladybug.

Give the kids each a magnifying glass and a notebook.  Go outside/on a walk and mark down how many bugs they find.  When we come back inside, make a graph of the kinds and amounts of bugs they found.

Do the activity cards with Busy Bugs
Practice adding with rubber bugs.

Draw a map of our neighborhood.  Take a bug and figure out how to get from one place to another, following the roads.


Science

Identify body parts of insects

Learn about metamorphosis

Learn about the types of insects:

decomposers
garden helpers
edible insects
pollinator
herbivore
carnivore

Fruit Flies
Take a ripe piece of fruit and place it in an open glass jar.  Put it near an open window for a couple days.  Place a cap on the jar and leave it in a warm area.  Watch what happens to the fruit.  (In a few days, fruit flies should emerge - gag)

Listen to sounds of insects on the computer/by cd

Food/Cooking
Make curds and whey - either the real way by making homemade yogurt, or heat 2 cups whole milk until just boiling.  Remove from heat and add a tablespoon of vinegar and stir.

Buzzy Bees
Fill a drinking cup with juice (nectar).  Make large paper flowers and tape them to a drinking cup.  Put a straw in the glass (so it comes out the center of the flower).  Drink the nectar from the flower like a bee or butterfly would.

Ants on a Log
Fill a celery stick with peanut butter, and put raisins on top.

Bug Mountain Cake
Bake a dome cake and a rectangle cake.  Place dome cake on top of the rectangle cake - frost with chocolate frosting.  Cover with 2-3 cups of crushed chocolate cookies.  Arrange rubber bugs on top of cake, crawling down the mountain.

Crafts
stamp with my insect rubber stamps

Make a spider web -
fold a piece of black paper in half lengthwise, widthwise, and diaganolly.  Open up and lay flat.  Trace with white puff paint over the fold lines.  Make a spiral circle over that with the paint, let dry.

Ladybug necklace - Paint backs of 2 bottle caps red.  Draw black dots on one of them.  Glue a strip of black felt to the insides of both, to make a hinge.  Glue a photo inside.  Put yarn around the hinge for a necklace.  (this will make more sense when we make it and I post a photo)

Paper Mache Insects ( dh and I think this is the coolest project....I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of big insects around the house LOL)

Blow up balloons and tape them together to make body shapes.  Tear newspaper into strips about 2 inches wide, and dip them into a 50/50 flour and water mix.  Cover the balloons with the newspaper strips - let dry for an hour or so inbetween layers.  The more layers, the sturdier the insect.   When you are all done, let dry for a couple of days.  Pop the balloon with a needle.  Paint the insect, and attach pipe cleaners for antennae, and whatever else you want for eyes, wings, etc...

Make a Tarantula
Cut out a spider body and attach pipe cleaner legs.  Make it lifesize - 10 inches across, legs extended.

Queen Wasp Chamber
Paint 9 toilet paper tubes brown, and glue in a pyramid shape.  Glue one grain of rice in each tube.  Make a wasp out of yellow clay - use pipe cleaners for legs and antennae.  Draw on details with black marker.  Place wasp in one of the chambers.

Jumping Grasshopper
Cut out a 3 cup section of a cardboard egg carton.  Paint the outside green.  Put a rubber ball in the middle cup, pushing a straight pin through each side to hold it in.  Cut out legs and wings from green construction paper, and glue to the sides and top.  Add eyes. 

Music
Ants go Marching 1x1 (I hate this song )
I Caught a Baby Bumble Bee
Listen to Flight of the Bumblebee

Bible Verses
Prov 6:6, 30:24, 25, 27  Exodus 8:20-32, 10:1-20, Joel 1:2-4 Psalms 105:31

Misc. Activities
Go on a scavenger hunt.  Give them a list of insects (use pictures or stickers for the list), and as they find them, mark them off.

Grasshopper Jump - make an obstacle course of things for them to jump over.

Relay Race - Have them race each other, doing things like the caterpillar/inchworm crawl, grasshopper hop, etc.

Bingo
Make a 5x5 card, with images of insects or numbers on the squares.  Either call out the name of an insect and she has to find it and put a marker on it, or ask a question with a numerical answer, and she has to find the number and put a marker on it.  Ex - How many legs does an insect have?  Or have a pile with matching pictures, and flip over the pile, one by one and find the matching image - first with 5 in a row wins.

Links:

Insect Worksheets
Lots of Insect Coloring Sheets
Itsy Bitsy Spider craft ideas
Awesome Insect clip art


Books I used:
Crafts for Kids who are Wild about Insects - Kathy Ross

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