I hope you enjoy this Spring Unit. It
is a large unit and has many ideas to offer
each teacher and Child Care Provider.
If you would like to add something to
this unit, feel free to e-mail. Include
the activities, theme and any comments.
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ideas. Miss Lisa@ dlayton@mo-net.com
http://www.oocities.org/Heartland/Acres/7875
SPRING UNIT (PART 1)
Many changes in nature occur during the spring months. In places where the
weather was cold during the winter months, it begins to warm causing plants
to grow once again. Spring flowers brighten gardens, trees bud and the grass
starts to turn green. Gardens and fields are planted as people become very
involved in outside activities during this season. Because of the warm weather,
animals and insects that were dormant also reappear. In some areas, rain and
wind occur more frequently. Spring rainstorms are caused by a sudden change
in the temperature.
An important step in scientific thinking is observation. In this unit of study on
the spring season, there are activities which will help young children observe
changes that occur at this time of year. Experiences with plants and seeds,
insects, spiders and earthworms, and spring weather are included.
INSECTS, SPIDERS AND EARTHWORMS
Young children are naturally curious about and fascinated by insects, spiders
and earthworms. As these creatures become active in the spring, they provide
a multitude of exciting, hands on activities designed to lead children to a greater
understanding and appreciation of the world around them.
CONCEPTS
***There are many kinds of insects (over a half a million).
***Insects have 6 legs.
***A spider is not an insect. It is called an arachnid.
***Spiders have eight legs.
***Most spiders spin webs for their homes, for their young, or to help catch
insects for food.
***Insects and spiders can be both helpful and harmful.
***Earthworms live under the soil.
***Earthworms help plants grow by mixing and loosening the soil.
ART ACTIVITIES
1.) Insect antennae: Decorate a paper head band with markers and add fringed
paper or pipe cleaners to make antennae.
2.) Lady Bugs: Paint ladybugs at the easels, with red and black paint. Add
different things to paint for different textures--to one pint of tempera, add 1
tablespoon of flour for lumpy texture: for gritty, add 1/2 tspn. sand: for
slippery, 1 tbspn. glycerin; for slimy, add 2 tbspns. liquid soap: for sticky,
add 2 tbsp. karo syrup: for rough, add 1 tbspn. cornmeal; for shiny, add 1/2
cup sugar.
3.) Clothespin Butterflies: Have children drop different colors of food coloring
diluted with water on a coffee filter or paper rowel and watch it spread. Hang
it up to dry. Pinch it together in the middle and slip it into the slot of an old
fashioned, round clothespin. A short piece of pip cleaner can be added for an
antennae.
4.) Foot Butterflies: Let children step in paint and then step on paper to make
butterfly wings. Let dry. Add body and antennae with yarn or markers or
crayons. Variation: Trace around children's feet. Have them decorate pieces
of ribbon, etc.....
5.) Playdough Bug: Create a bug by using playdough for the body. Attach tooth-
picks, pipe cleaners, or paper strips for legs, wings and antennae.
6.) Fingerpaint: While children are fingerpainting, play the record" Flight bumble-
bee's buzzing around bushes or chasing something.
7.) Stained-Glass Butterfly: Let children scrape crayon shavings on a butterfly
or bug shaped piece of wax paper, cover with another piece of wax paper,
and press with an iron set at low heat. Variation: mount melted crayon
pictures under a butterfly or bug shaped mat opening.
8.) Thumb print Insects: Let children make thumbprings using an ink pad. Let
them use crayons or markers to add legs and antennae, etc.....
9.) Easel shapes: Cut insect, spider or earthworm shapes out of large easel
paper. Let the children decorate it with markers or paint.
10.) Insect Templates: Templates can be purchased or made by tracing a shape
with glue. Allow the glue to dry on a piece of cardboard. Place a plain sheet
of paper on top and use crayons to rub.
11.) Insect stamps: Insect stamps can be purchased, or make your own from a
stamp sheet. Use markers to color background.
12.) Butterfly Blot: Fold piece of construction paper in half. Open. Drop bright
colors of paint onto one half of paper. Close paper and press. Open. The
variation: Use brown or black paint to make buts.
13.) Ladybug: Paint half of walnut shell red. When dry, Paint black spots on
the shell with a cotton tipped swab. Variations:
a.) Paint smooth round rock instead of walnut shell.
b.) Make spots with black felt tipped pen.
c.) Instead of painting spots, glue black circles made with a paper punch.
14.) Grasshopper: Use round top clothespin for body. Wrap pipe cleaners
around prongs of clothespin to form legs and wings. Paint or spray paint
green.
15.) Beehive: Glue honeycomb cereal onto paper to represent inside or outside
of beehive. Draw bees with crayons.
16.) Clay Earthworms: Put clay or playdough out on table for children to use.
Encourage children to make earthworms.
17.) Earthworms Painting: Set out bowls of thin red, yellow, and blue paint and
and newsprint. Direct children to pick up the earthworms by one end and
dip into paint. Place on paper and watch him wiggle, squirm, and slide
across paper. Discuss how he moves. (This doesn not hurt worms, but
wash and return to container if worms become less active.) Allow children
to help bathe the worms in cool water. Explain that water does not hurt the
earthworm because its body needs to be damp. If we let the paint dry on
the earthworm it would die.
18.) Straw paint worm: Dab a bit of thin paint on an earthworm shape and blow
it around through a straw.
19.) Eye Dropper earthworms: Cut paper towels into earthworm shape. Drop
diluted food coloring onto towl with an eye dropper.
20.) Stuffed earthworms: Cut an earthworm shape out of bulletin board paper
(two per child). Let the children paint their earthworm with string dipped
in paint. After the paing is dry, allow the children to stuff them with news-
paper. Staple shut.
21.) Melted Crayon: Let children use melted crayon with q tips on an insect
shape. Crayon melters can be purchased commercially.
22.) Marble Roll: Place a yellow bee shape inside of box (lid of a xerox paper
reem works well). Children roll the marbles in a shallow pan of black
paint and then spoon them into the box. Pick up the box and tilt in back
and forth to make the marbles roll. THe effect will (or can be imagined) as
strips on a bumble bee.
23.) Egg Carton Creatures:
a.) Caterpillare: Use three connected egg carton cups. For antennae, make two
holes in cup at one end and thread a pipe cleaner through the holes. Paint.
Allow to dry. Add facial features with felt tipped pen.
b.) Wasp or Bee: Paint Caterpiller yellow. Allw to dry. Make slots on sides of the
center cup. Insert wings made of construction paper. To make legs, poke a
hole through the two sides of each cup. Thread a pipe cleaner through holes
in each cup. To cover with "pollen" place legs in dry yellow tempra.
c.) Bug: Paint section or sections of egg carton for body. Glue small scraps of
construction paper to body for features. Use pipe cleaners for antennae, legs
or wings. Variation: GLue egg carton sections to construction paper. Paint
egg carton and paper to create bug.
d.) Spider: Poke four holes near open edge of egg carton cup. Thread a pipe
cleaner halfway through one hole. Bend in half to form two legs. Repeat
process with other holes. Paint brown or black.
COOKING
1.) Gelatine Ladybugs: Bring four cups water to a boil. Add four envelopes un-
flavored gelatin and stir until dissolved. Then add three envelopes red flavor-
ed gelatin and stir until dissolved. Pour into small andividual pans. Let each
child count six raisins and place them in the gelatin for ladybug spots. Add
licorice strings for antennae.
2.) Bugs on a Branch: Fill celery stalk with peanut butter. Place raisins on
peanut butter for bugs. Can use peanuts instead of raisins.
3.) Vegi-Caterpillar: Skewer three or four cherry tomatoes on a sandwich tooth-
pick. Poke two holes in the last tomato. Poke small celery leaves into holes.
Presto! A caterpillar. Variation: use parsley instead of celery leaves.
4.) Butterfly: Place carrot stick in center of lettuce leaf. Cut flice of pineapple in
half. Arrange pineapple according to diagram. Add a seedless grap or raisin
at top of carrot. Place raisins or grape halves on pineapple. Variation: Instead
of pineapple, use pear cut lengthwise for wings.
5.) Ladybug: Use half of tomato. Place flat side of tomato on lettuce leaf. Use
whole, black, olive for head and slices of black olives for spots.
6.) Chocolate worms: Melt 12 ounces of sem-sweet chocolates morselts and
2 tbspn. butter. Add crunchy chow mein noodles. Mix well and enjoy!
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
1.) What is missing? Place pictures of insects face up on a table or the floor.
Have children identify each picture. Shuffle pictures and remove one. Have
children tell which insect is missing.
2.) Little Miss Meffet: Provide props to act out this nursery rhyme. Use a pillow
for a tuffet, a bowl and spoon for curds and whey, and a rubber spider on a
string. Have children take turns being Miss Muffet and the spider while the
rest of the class repeats the rhyme.
3.) Sequencing: Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Discuss how
a caterpillar changes to a butterfly. Have pictures of the stages of a butter-
flies life cycle. Have the children sequence them.
4.) Copying: Make word cards by writing the names of insects on sentence
strips. Identify each one with a corresponding sticker to picture each insect.
Have the children draw pictures and or copy the names of the insects with
markers, crayons or colored pencils.
5.) Three of these things belong together: Display four items, of which three of
the items relate to insects, spiders or earthworms and one which does not.
Children tell which ones belong together and why.
6.) Insect Books: The children draw or paste pictures of their favorite insects
and dictate stories about them.
7.) Dot to Dot: Children can complete the insect shape from a dotted insect. To
make your own, lay a sheet of paper on top of a picture of an insect. Instead
of a line, make dots. Copy this off.
8.) Insect picture and name puzzle match: Provide a picture of an insect with the
name written on it. Have letters available for children to copy the word.
GAMES AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
1.) Catch a firefly: Children stand in a circle with lights off. teacher flashes light
from flashlight around circle saying, "Catch a firefly...now let it go."
2.) Bug Bingo: Use insect stickers to make bingo boards. Have the children mark
the pictures with small plastic flies.
3.) Spin the bottle: Child spins the bottle and names the insect that the bottle is
pointing to.
4.) Insect Race: Divide the children into two equal, sit down circles. When the
children are given the signal, they begin passing a rubber insect or spider
around. As soon as the bug gets all the way around the chidren in that circle
stand up.Repeat until both teams have a chance to stand up first.
5.) Insect Prepo: Using a plastic insect, children are given instructions using
prepositional phrases. (i.e. put the insect under the table, on the floor...)
Can be used as a dismissal from grouptime.
6.) Roly Poly: Have the children crawl of the floor and pretend to be a roly poly.
When the teacher touches hiim, he should roll into a tight ball. WHen the
teacher leaves, stretch out and begin to crawl again.
7.) Buggy Guessing Game: Place following parts from Cootie by Schaper Manu.
Company in a bag: six legs, two antennae, one head, and one body. Remove
one part from bag at a time. Attemp to guess what the finished product will
be. When completely assembled discuss names and functions of the parts.
Count number of legs. (Can also be a flannel board story).
8.) Lady Bug Race: Place marble inside walnut shell of ladybug. Hold two lady-
bugs on the raised end of inclined board. Release. Marbles will roll, moving
ladybugs down the board.
SCIENCE
In this unit, as in other, we want the children to be developing the scientific skills
of observation, classification, comparison, discovery and problem solving.
1.) Collections: An insect or spider collection can be displayed along with books
to help identify these creatures.
2.) Bees: Display a collection of honey bees and a honeycomb. Use a magnifying
glass to observe honey in the honeycomg. Taste honey. The bees nest is
called a comb. It is made of six sided cells that are wax. Beeswax is used
for candles, floorwaxes, ointments and in lipstick. Display some of these items
or pictures of them.
3.) Nature Walk: Go on a nature walk in an area to look for insects or spiders and
their homes.
4.) Bottle Catchers: Use clear plastic bottle which has a screw top lid. Perforate
lid for air. Add twigs so bug will have a place to climb.
5.) Ant Hills: Take a magnifying glass outside to observe ant hills.
6.) Ant Farm: Fill a one gallon jar partially full of soil. Find an ant hill and with a
shovel lift surrounding dirt. Place dirt and ants into jar. Be sure tp lace queen
ant in jar. She is larger and has wings. Wrap dark paper around jar to encourage
ants to make tunnels. Place bread crumbs and a damp cotton ball on top of
soil. Pour a little water on the cotton every few days. Remove dark paper in
several days and observe tunnels.
MANIPULATIVES
Blocks: 1.) Add large plastic insects to building area.
2.) Build a tunnel that the children must crawl through like a worm.
WaterTable 1.) Add plastic insects to corn meal or sand.
2.) Soil with earthworms to observe.
3.) Water with rubber earthworms and fish. Use fishing poles to catch
fish with earthworms for bait.
SONGS AND FINGERPLAYS
Three Little LadyBugs:
One little ladybug (children hold up one finger)
With spots on its wings
Landed right beside me (children tap sides)
As I played on the swings (children away forward and backward)
Two little Lady Bugs (children hold up two fingers)
Flew around a flower, (children move two fingers in a circle)
Then crawled beneath a leaf (children cup one hand over two fingers)
To nap for half an hour. (children lay their heads on their hands)
Eensy weensy spider (traditonal)
Eensy, weensy spider climber up the water spout,
Down came the rain and washed the spider out,
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
So the eensy, weensy spider crawled up the spout again.
written and admitted by Miss Lisa of the Buddy Pages copyrighted 1998