nature cards -revised

We had to re-do the nature frames.  We made them last time with contact paper and several got mushy.  We gathered new items, pressed them for a week or two between paper towels and book, then laminated them with my thicker lamination.

This locust wing is pretty cool.

I found this yellow feather under the clothesline. 

These flowers are from a little bush in the backyard. 

The dandelion turned out great. 

They were fun in our kitchen window, but from the backyard looking in, they looked like that plastic winter covering some people put on their windows.   Hubby requested I take them down.

Then we tried them on the light box and really liked them.  

Even the regular leaves turned out super cool.  This method took a little more time to allow for pressing and drying, but has been worth the short wait.  Bee would like us to keep an eye out for some butterfly wings.  Those would be pretty too.

see ya frogs

It was time to let the little froggers go. Our tadpoles went and grew up.

We took them out to a cozy little spot at the nature center.

We must have let them go and recaptured them a dozen times.

Good-bye fellows.  There are more of your buddies in our bowl just weeks behind you.

Fall Sensory Box

We changed out the sensory box from the 'back to school' theme to fall. The beans have been replaced with acorns (this is the tip of the iceberg of our acorn collection!), the primary colored pom poms have been replaced with fall leaf colored ones. Some of the buckets and baskets and scooper have been replaced with different ones, just to change it up a bit.


I added a handful of buckeyes that I collected from my favorite spot on the Ball State campus. I threw them in a jar of fall stuff and have been moving them around from house to house for the last ten years. I'm glad they get a little use finally.

Lou helped me test it out at the nature center this week.

bats and job shadowing

This was my last week of job shadowing. Next week, they let me lead the class myself.

This week was bats. It's hard to be fall without being outright Halloween. Here is the counting song from today. I was thrilled to find one that didn't involved witches or gouls. It is from this site. I had trouble with Lou last week getting upset sharing the pieces to the felt board. It was rather embarrassing. Today we just used our hands for the counting. This worked much better.

Little Bats
1 little bat was trying to behave.
He hung upside down from his feet in a cave.
Another bat flew in, and said, "How do you do?"
The second joined the first, and then there were 2!
2 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
To help pass the time, they sang "Do re me"
Another bat joined the song, and then there were 3.
3 little bats were trying to behave
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave
From their cave perch, they looked down at the floor,
A new bat joined the game, and then there were 4.
4 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
One little bat zoomed inside and did a dive.
He stayed to take a rest, and with him there were 5.

Here's the craft from today. It's a little finger puppet bat. We'll be doing less 'pattern' projects in the upcoming months.

owl day- I'm moving on up

I'm moving on up in the volunteer world. I signed up to volunteer at the nature center in our area in late August. There was somewhat of a process to go through just to read some stories to some 2-3 year olds. I am now job shadowing. This week was owls. Our program is short, 30-40 minutes. We start each session by rolling the big ball around and saying out names. Then we do a touch box to set the theme. We share several stories, do a little song or rhyme, then do a craft. It's pretty simple. Often, a real animal is brought in or some type of object is passed around. This week we had the nature center's barred owl named Luna brought in.

Here is the little counting rhyme and flannel board activity I found online at Everything Preschool. It's one of my favorite resources for poems, songs, and rhymes to go with a theme.

The kids then made an owl face puppet.

After class today we had a planning meeting and planned crafts and activities for the rest of the year. I think I was a little to forward/pushy in the meeting, because as I looked back at the plans, we went with my craft ideas for almost every week. hmmmm.