ART/COLOR
IDEA
Submitted by Betty
I use Brown Bear, Brown Bear with my color
theme. I take a color a day (I teach 4's and most of them already
know their colors). We read the book over and over again. I
also show the video (Scholastic) about Eric Carle which shows how
he creates his art. We try to use his techniques! He
uses a lot of tissue paper but we work on manilla (tried working
on tissue one year and it was too frustrating). For red bird, the
children place small pcs. of red tissue on a bird outline with starch. You
could have them tear pcs., too, for more fine motor developing. We
save the bird, but let them do more on a plain sheet so it can be
open-ended. For each color animal, they repeat the process
but we vary the techniques......we finger paint the blue horse (that's
the same day I save a print of their hands!!!), we splatter paint,
we feather paint ( the yellow duck!), we use carpet square prints,
we use the handle end of the paint brush, etc. If you look
carefully at Carle's work, you can get the children to brainstorm how he did it. When they are all finished
and we have save the animal pictures......I make it a book and they take iT
home to read and read and read! We end the whole unit with a painting
day where a group paints creating the colors he uses for his suns (he almost
always has a sun in his work!!!), some children mix red and blue to create
his purple tones, another group creates his green tones, etc. We then
share all these paintings and they cut and make a collage of the Hungry Caterpillar
and anything else they would like! I hope i am clear on this...........
To those of you who get Mailbox, this idea was submitted
by me and appeared in their last issue! It might make better sense
in there because they reworded it to make more sense, I'm sure!!!! Wish
I could show you a finished copy of our book and our Hungry Caterpillars. My
students can spot an E. Carle book a mile away!!!
HERMIT THE CRAB
Crab In A Pasta Shell
Decorate a large pasta shell with paint (markers will work too) Either
squirt a little glue inside the shell or dip a red pompom in the
glue. Then stuff the pompom inside the shell. It will
stick out some. Glue wiggle eyes onto the pompom and attach
pipe cleaner legs (or chenille stem). One year we left them
like this but the next year I mixed glue and sand together and had
the children paint a paper plate with it and then attached the crab
to it. It turned out really cute.
Read the book. Discuss the different sea creatures Hermit Crab encounters.
I had plastic sea creatures and some shells of various sizes that we passed
around and talked about.
Do the crab walk.
Put on some music and move like various sea creatures.
Have noodles, paper, glitter, paint, stamps etc available for the children
to decorate a shell shaped paper or poster board.
Make A Crab
Need: Paper Plate for each child
Egg carton cut so that two cups are attached-a pair for each child
Red Paint
Wiggly Eyes
Red Construction Paper
Stapler
Have the children paint the underside of the paper plate and the egg carton
section red. When dry fold the plate in half to create the body of Hermit Crab.
Staple all around the edges to secure. Glue the egg carton section on near
the folded edge of the plate. We had some difficulty doing this and wound up
securing it with a strip of scotch tape. In the middle of each section, glue
on a wiggly eye. Let the children cut strips of red
construction paper to attach as legs. We dipped the ends into a bowl of glue
and then slid it between the plate edges. The crabs are adorable! I'm not real
good at giving the directions but play around with it and I/m sure you will
figure it out.
The Hermit Crab Cha-Cha
Tune: The Silliest Goat I Ever Saw
The hermit crab (Cha-cha-cha)
He has no home (Cha-cha-cha)
He has no shell (Cha-cha-cha)
To call his own. (Cha-cha-cha)
He moves along the ocean floor,
To find the home he's hoping for.
The hermit crab (Cha-cha-cha)
Soon finds a shell. (Cha-cha-cha)
He crawls inside. (Cha-cha-cha)
It fits him well. (Cha-cha-cha)
He moves along the ocean floor,
Until his home fits him no more.
VERY BUSY SPIDER
In advance, staple one end of each piece of yarn to the top
of the poster board so that the yarn extends over the edge of the poster
board.At circle time read book. As you read each page in the story
ask one child (or more) to come to the poster board and make a part
of the web by gently pulling one piece of yarn diagonally across the
poster board and taping the end down. After the story is completed
and each child has helped make the web add a paper spider and talk
about the story. *This could also be
done using chalk and a chalkboard instead of the yarn and poster board*
VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
Submitted by Karen
Feed the Caterpillar
Make a very hungry caterpillar using a pringles can and pieces cut
out and laminated.
I pass out all of the things that the caterpillar eats to the children, and
as I read the story the children put their pieces in the caterpillars mouth. When
the caterpillar is done eating place the whole caterpiller into an other box
or a bag (cocoon)painted brown, reach inside and pull out the butterfly as
you finish the story.
How to make the caterpillar.
Empty a can of pringles or an oatmeal box and cover the outside with green
paper, add eyes to the top, cut half of the lid off so item can be placed in
the mouth. Make the pieces of all the things the caterpillar eats color and
laminate them (you could also use felt pieces). Have another container
that the caterpillar can fit in (cocoon. Make a butterfly and place it in the
cocoon. You can velcro the butterfly to the side of the cocoon to find
it eaiser.
Feed the Caterpillar
Submitted by Marianne
After reading The Very Hungary Caterpillar. Make caterpillars using wooden
clothes pins that have pom poms glued onto them. Print out pictures of apples,
pears, plums, strawberries and oranges on tagboard, cut out and laminate. Let
your students feed they appropriate number of fruits to their caterpillar.
Submitted by Mary
We have had fun doing activities based on the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar
by Eric Carle.
I made felt board pieces from the story so the children could re-tell the
story themselves. I got my patterns for pieces from the book 2's Experience
Felt Board Fun by Liz and Dick Wilmes. This book has great patterns
if you aren't very good at drawing, like me!
We made pictures of caterpillars using round sponges for the body and our
finger tips to add details- face, legs. Then we used the pictures to
make our own version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Each child picked
a food that the caterpillar found to eat. Some of the foods our caterpillar
found were cornbread muffins, hot dogs, yummy pizza and doughnuts. At
the end our caterpillar turned into a butterfly and flew home to her Mom. The
children have enjoyed being able to "read" this book by themselves.
We made fruit prints with some of the fruits from the beginning of the story.
Everyone brought in their favorite piece of fruit. We counted the
different kinds of fruit then made a graph. After that we made fruit
salad for snack time.
We used nap time blankets to act out this poem-
Fuzzy wuzzy caterpillar into a corner will creep.
He'll spin himself a blanket and then go fast to sleep.
Fuzzy wuzzy caterpillar wakes up by and by,
To find he has wings of beauty, changed to a butterfly.
We used sequencing cards to tell the story. We had these pictures
on cards-egg, small caterpillar, food and a leaf, big, fat caterpillar, cocoon
and a beautiful butterfly.
We made a caterpillar with little balls of colorful tissue paper glued to
a big popsicle stick. We used a little styrofoam ball for the head
and added a face with markers. A toothpick broken in half were poked into
the head for antenna.
We colored coffee filters with markers then sprayed them with water. When
the filters were dry we gathered them in the middle with a pipe cleaner to
make a butterfly.
Catepillar Names
Students write each letter of their name on a construction paper circle (write
for them if they cannot) and the child glues the circles together to form a
caterpillar. They then glue either two wiggly eyes on the first letter of the
name or two small construction paper circles (following directions). Children
count the number of circles and then together create a class graph of the
number of letters in their name.
WALTER THE BAKER
I let the kids knead dough while reading the book and then
we shaped our dough into various shapes. We also used our bodies
to bend like the pretzel shapes we made. Another activity we
did was collage with several size and shapes of pretzels. You
could also string pretzels together for a fine motor skill.
LISTENING/LITERACY
Submitted by Judith
while doing a learning unit base on famous authors like Eric Carle,
I copy the tape over many times so the children will not lose interest
in listing. I use the tapes that will play for 30 mins. I make stick
puppets to follow the story. and I place the book on a table
near the recorder. I also place a plexi. glass mirror on the table
so the children can see them selfs. you can see them reading the
story by memory while holding the puppets.
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