What a FFFFantastically busy week we have had, exploring the letter F and continuing on with our FFFFall unit. As per usual, we have been placing our hand in front of our mouths and on our throats to feel if the letter sound is either AIRY or LOUD. Super silent, the children were surprised that they could not feel even the slightest vibration on their throats when making the sound of airy Ff.
As we learned about the letter, we again talked about writing strokes, moving our hands from top to bottom (lines) and then across on the top and across on the middle lines. Shaped like a candy cane with a line across it’s middle, the children were quick to recall the shape of lower case Ff. We wrote the letter, created fun, froggy F crafts and even created the letter from 3 lines of varying sizes that the children cut out!
This week’s fall lessons introduced the concepts of migration and hibernation. Monday’s class discussed the topic of bird migration. Again, building upon earlier lessons, the children described what was NOT available in nature for the birds to eat….no leaves, no seeds, berries or bugs…..what will the birds do? They migrate! We played a fun migration game, the children finding hidden “food” objects throughout the room, leading them on the path “south” to the land where food is in abundance! Of course, we made bird feeders for those birds who stick around Colorado or for those passing through on their migratory path. We also used the same pine cones to create little birds, using FFFFeathers of many colors to create the bird that each child fancied!
Wednesday’s group learned about bats as the concept of hibernation was introduced. Once again, we related information from previous lessons to help the children predict the bats’ behavior.
Prior to reading a book or investigating the topic at all, I showed the children a picture of a bat and had them focus on the wings, feet and face. I then charted a question on the board – IS A BAT A TYPE OF A BIRD? The children responded, I tallied their responses and we then indicated which response had more or less.
As we read the book, Stellaluna, I asked the children to compare the traits of the birds and the bats in order to answer their charted question at the end of the story. They practiced answering questions about what they saw happening in the story and what they predicted would happen next. How impressed I was that so many of them were familiar with the concept of nocturnal, as the book shows pictures of a nocturnal bird (owl) swooping down on the bats We even discussed the concept of prey vs. predator and which nocturnal animals in Colorado may be prey or predators.
Following the story we played a game of ECHOLOCATION. Each child had a turn wearing bat wings and using his/her tool of “echolocation” to find their food source, mosquitos. As the child flew about and shouted ECHO, the rest of the class would answer LOCATION. The quicker together the two words were, the closer the bat was to catching it’s food. Super fun and easy for the children to remember!
So busy, we cut and created bat mobiles, made bat books and even did some bat math!
Fall animals sure are FFFFFun!
The children are super excited to move further into our exploration of Colorado animals, after our Halloween Celebration!
