Caterpillar Counting

This was a very basic activity that I decided to use today in order to help my younger son try to become somewhat motivated to learn his numbers by sight. It was vaguely successful, although any non-success can be attributed to my son's lack of interest, rather than the effectiveness of the activity.

Either way, it's easy and fun and yummy.

I just so happened to have some leftover sour gummy worms (left over from making that recipe where you create dirt out of oreo's...you know the one). ANYway. I had some leftover and I thought it would be fun to use them in a counting exercise. So after a little thought, I grabbed my scissors and green construction paper and cut out 10 leaves. I wrote numbers 1-10, one on each leaf. Then I dumped a big pile of the gummy worms on the table and rounded up the kids.

It didn't take much imagination for them to believe that the worms, previously used as worms, were now caterpillars. Hungry caterpillars--no less--who wanted to be put on leaves. I told them that the leaves were picky and only wanted a certain number of caterpillars on them. So they had to put the amount of caterpillars on the leaf that would match it's number. Savvy? "Savvy" they said.

My older son was done with his leaves (I gave him 6-10) in a flash and ran away until I told him he could come back and gobble some of the caterpillars. But my younger son, who needed much coaching from myself, struggled to comprehend the idea of corresponding amounts with numbers. We worked on it for quite a while. Repetition works...right?

Finally, I told them they could pick a leaf and eat all the caterpillars on it, "so which one would you choose?" I asked.

That last part was not the best idea I ever had.

Another Update

Also, a friend of mine sent me an excellent link from her school district's website. The school district has come up with enough awesome activities to fill up the whole year. The purpose, as much as I can gather at a quick look-see, is for families to use the activities to help prepare their preschoolers for kindergarten. Maybe every school district does this, I'll have to check mine and see what they have to offer. Anyway, the one from my friend's district is really very amazing. So lately, whenever the kids say, "what can we do now?" I pull out one of these activities from this website, print it out, all easy-peasy, and we have a great time.

Here's the link: Vancouver School District Family Packets

Check it out!

Month Update

Oh man! A month has gone by and I haven't posted...and why? Hmm...I'm not SO sure. I think the best explanation would be that it got sunny here. Yes. That about sums it up. So, instead of doing preschool activities and writing about them, we just spent time outdoors. Also, somewhere in there we all got sick. At some point we went on a vacation. And for awhile I just didn't feel like posting.

There you have it.

Anyway, here is a bit of a recap of some things we did that I never posted about:




We finished our butterfly unit, which was a lot of fun. We used pipe-cleaners as caterpillars and made butterfly rings to use as props while learning a few songs and fingerplays. We also did that activity where you wrap a kid all up in toilet paper and let them break out, you know, to simulate the cocoon effect and all. That was probably the part the kids will remember the most :-)



After learning about butterflies for about a week, we moved onto a rock unit. I know I found a lot of preschool geology information on the web, but honestly, I didn't keep track of where I got it very well. There are 4 activities from this unit that I remember best: making a rock collection, using the rock collection to practice sorting (as follows in the photos),

further using the rock collection to test the rocks for living matter (all you do is drop the rocks in vinegar; if the rock bubbles that's an indication of some sort of living matter that's leftover in the rock and reacting with the vinegar just like baking soda would. I mean, obviously it's a lot more complicated than that, but that's kind of what I told the kids we were doing: checking for BONES in the rocks! Honestly, the idea of bones kept their attention pretty well--"Mom! This one is bubbling! It must have bones in it! Do you think that a giant t-rex was walking a long time ago and then he died and then his bones got all crushed up and stuck in this rock and now we're holding it?!" "Yes son, I'm pretty sure that must be exactly what happened." Don't judge me--at least they're thinking about it.), and finally we did this deal where you take white paper outside and crayons and make a crayon-rubbing of the concrete.

That last one was a big flop. Don't do it. It's pointless and dumb.

So that's us. It's been a fun month spending most of our time out of doors. But don't you worry, I'm sure we'll be back to the ol' grind pretty soon.