Mrs. Mundell's Lively Ladybugs: Self Portraits, Dinosaur Eggs and the Coast Guard Field Trip

The children began the week by drawing detailed portraits of themselves. With minimal teacher direction each child looked in the mirror and talked about their eye and hair color and then began their drawings. After adding hair, clothing, shoes and even shoes, some boys and girls drew their families and pets.

After sharing books and portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln the children learned about the important job they both held as being Presidents of our country, The United States of America. When reciting the Pledge of Allegiance we talked about how the flag that we salute each day represents our country. Magnifying glasses were used to view a penny up close and see the picture of Abraham Lincoln.

This week the children were excited to discover some more dinosaurs hanging out on some really cool rocks in our sensory table.

After solving puzzles and seeing these gigantic and unusually unique creatures, the children used dinosaur non-fiction books to find out their names. Now they are beginning to call them by name and identify their characteristics.

Did you know that dinosaurs laid eggs? The Lively Ladybugs discovered this fact when reading some of our many wonderful books about dinosaurs. Now we are making our own dinosaur eggs! First we used both sets of pincher fingers to tear strips of newspaper. Then we mixed flour and water together until it looked kind of like pancake batter. Next we dipped our newspaper strips into the mixture and held the strip with pincher fingers and used careful scissor fingers to remove the excess mixture from the strip. THEN we began covering a balloon with our newspaper strips.

We worked together as a team as some of us tore newspaper and then delivered it to the next table where we were covering eggs.

On Thursday we were off to the Coast Guard to learn about their many important jobs and the special vehicles they use when keeping people safe.

After observing the huge Coast Guard plane from the outside we were able to step inside!

Next we learned about the big rotor on top of the helicopter and saw one preparing to take off!

Inside of the helicopter we saw the pump that is used to get the water out of a sinking boat and the basket that is used to rescue people.

Then we were able to sit in the pilot's seat and see all of the many instruments used to fly the helicopter.

Next we learned about people who worked on the helicopters to keep them safe and ready to fly. We even knew some friends there!

What a great trip thanks to our friends at the Coast Guard!

In Exploring this week we made fossils by pouring plaster of paris into a cup with a little dinosaur. It began to harden very quickly just like those old dinosaur bones did.

Then we made fossil necklaces by threading various shapes of pasta onto colored thread, sometimes making a pattern.

The children enjoyed dramatic play using a dinosaur like environment and curved blocks with strips of orange and red paper to make volcanoes.

For snack the boys and girls stomped on graham crackers like dinosaurs to begin making a dinosaur nest. Then they we added a little bit of yogurt for the mud and topped it with jelly beans for eggs.