Flowers & Insects. Planets.

 

Our last shelf setup was spilt between the Solet system and plants and bugs.  We’ve covered different insect life cycles: ladybug, butterfly, bee, firefly (briefly), the ant…..so I put these all together complete with the 3 part cards.  I added books on each critter, some they haven’t seen yet as I pull them out randomly to keep interest in the subject. I printed some photos of different sorts of ladybugs and added a few newer life cycle pieces to each activity.  For bees I added the concept of pollination which we only spoke briefly about before. Having gone over the plant material we have & recently the dissection of their bean plant, pollination was a nice addition.

 

Maggie works on the ladybug life cycle.

Lily works with the bee life cycle.

Maggie looks over ladybug photographs which depict different varieties of ladybugs.  She finishes up a life cycle chart coloring in the pictures and using the control card as a guide to the colors.

More bee.

Lily matches bugs to their books. She works on the 3 part cards associated with the bee life cycle.  Again this is a phase by phase step by step process she has to do to achieve the end result.  She has to sequence the bee life cycle first.  Then match the picture card to that control card laid down already in sequence.  Next she matches the word to the picture.  Finally placing the objects in cycle to their matching cards.  It’s a good many steps.

For this activity maggie worked on fine motor skills with small plastic chips on her ladybug sheets.  I called numbers out (on the numbered sheet) and she placed the circle on the appropriate numbers.

Bee life cycle with different cards. Cell added. As a hive.  We have started discussing where the bee lives, why they make honey and the pollen the honey is made from.  Why bees are so important to our lives in general.

Maggie works on ladybug and a finished bee cycle.

Maggie finishes her ladybug cycle.

Maggie works on beginning letter sounds.

We have been using handwriting without tears.  Part of the program involves writing in a vertical position to increase hand strength and improve coordination skills.  We use the same cards horizontally on a table too.   These work on beginning sounds of words.  Matching a picture to the first letter sound to color with dry erase crayons.  I write the word in cursive and print as each kiddo has their own style so far. Then I separate the sounds in association method fashion on the board.