As an Experience Early Learning Blog Ambassador, we receive the Experience Early Learning preschool curriculum in exchange for sharing our honest and authentic stories resulting from our personal experiences. As always, our opinions on amazing things for children are 100% our own. Keep in mind that all preschoolers do things in their own time and on their own terms. What one is ready for, another might not be. Please use your best judgement when planning activities for your children.
This week, we're exploring Large Sea Animals with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time). There are so many amazing creatures to learn about from dolphins and whales to sharks and sea turtles.
Today's topic is Octopus and we made adorable Octopus Windsock paper crafts that were super quick and easy and of course perfect for practicing lots of important early learning skills.
We started off with a discussion about how many arms we have versus how many an octopus has. What a fun conversation starter for preschoolers!
This is a great topic to practice counting because an octopus has eight arms, which means lots of opportunities to practice counting to eight.
We also have an octopus plush that turns inside out with smiles and frowns, which led to a great impromptu discussion about feelings today.
After that, we decorated our octopus bodies and cut on the lines to create arms.
We used eyes and yarn to finish off our octopus windsocks and the children had a blast sticking "suction cups" (stickers) on their octopuses.
The play idea that was included with today's craft from Experience Early Learning was so cute and a great way to get active in the classroom, especially since it's been kind of cold and rainy this week.
Hang the projects under a table and invite children to pretend to swim without disturbing the octopuses.
Of course, the preschoolers had lots of fun "swimming."
This activity also included some assessment questions. What details did the child draw on his octopus? What does this tell you about the child's knowledge of octopuses?
We love that these observation questions are included with so many of the activities in the Teacher Guides because they make doing assessments much easier.
Don't forget to check back next week to see what we're up to with our ocean theme from Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time).
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