Creative-Mommy

Today, in addition to making the world's biggest pain of a mural (mostly because Rachel got bored coloring and I ended up doing most of it) on which we will put the bugs we make, we make the cutest spider puppet. The pattern came out of the book, Puppets and Storytime. Its a Dr. Jean book, for those who are familiar with her work. Anyway, you basically take two small paper plates and decorate them. Then, you take 8 strips of colored construction paper and accordian fold them to make spider legs. You take one old sock, add google eyes and a face (we used a pom-pom for the nose) and then assemble. Glue the legs, four on each side of the bottom plate, then insert the sock between the plates and staple. If you only staple on the sides, then you have a sock puppet, a little small for my bigger hands, but perfect for the hands of my three year old. She was super-impressed with the puppet and I was impressed with how easy it was to make.

A lot of the insect information (including the mural) that we are using comes from www.learningpage.com. Its free to sign up, they don't spam you to death with emails and the lessons are great. I also supplement that with some activities out of a couple of fine motor skill books I have as well as an A-Z Mailbox book (I took flower cutouts from there to add to some bug cutouts for counting) and A-Z Themes for the Year. Holly sent me a scanner when her aunt came this way on family vacation, and it has made life a lot easier.

I will also post pictures of the color identification game I made (which I found free online) and the counting bugs and flowers. They are super-cute and the kids love them. Cover them with strips of packing tape and they are sturdy and durable.