Surprise! Yes, I know...This week was supposed to be about the Wild West. All apologies to the ones who have been waiting for posts on the subject. I unfortunately was not very inspired by the subject and couldn't come up with enough activities for a week. As such, I've decided to postpone that thematic until more ideas come my way or until we have a short week of school...:)
So what did we do this week? We talked about birds. More specifically...Angry Birds. I seriously don't like the idea that Adrian's discovered this game but he loves it and so we allow him a few minutes here and there as a treat. To his delight though, we spent the entire week speaking of the "Bad Piggies" and "Angry Birds".
Counting with the "Bad Piggies"
The Minion Pigs are re-building their houses with rocks after the Birds attacked. Each pig needs a certain amount of rocks for this. Can you help the pigs? And then each pig (made these with pompoms, felt, hot glue and goggly eyes) was set on the table with a number ranging from 0-20. A little bowl filled with river rocks (exact amount of rocks needed) was also sat down on the table. Adrian, 4 years old, had no trouble whatsoever in distributing the building materials. All the piggies got the exact amount they requested.
Matching Angry Birds with their Real Bird Counterparts
While investigating the possibility of an Angry Birds week, I saw Counting Coconuts had similar work. I thought it was a great idea and went ahead and printed a picture of each Angry Bird (forgot the Blue Bird...) and found out what species of bird they each were all inspired by. I then printed a picture of those real birds and set it out. It really is just color matching but you can dig deeper. You can look for differences too. For example, do the real birds really have eyebrows? Are their bellies really a different color? It can turn into a fantasy versus reality discussion easily. You child may even enjoy drawing his own Angry Bird based on a real bird seen in your backyard. For a copy of my matching birds, e-mail me. Otherwise, the clipart was found on Wikia and the real birds were separately looked up for pictures. Their species are listed on Wikia as well if you take the time to click on each colored bird.
Parts of a Bird
Obviously, this is not an Angry Bird but it's a bird and I thought we could welcome all birds to our Angry Birds study. Adrian knew almost all the parts these cards presented. I printed these free cards thanks to Montessori Materials (under Bird Picture Labels).
Bird Paper plate Craft
This was quite something to do for Adrian. He had to color the dinner paper plate, punch holes (with help) for the legs and insert them in, cut the plate and glue it. It took a while and for a while, he couldn't tell it would ever look like a bird. The cutting part was rough too. Paper plates are more resilient to our Melissa & Doug plastic scissors I'd say! :) Anyhow, I found this craft on My Montessori Journey. Prior to coloring, I drew a black line in the middle of the plate, and then on one of those halves, I drew two more lines. They were guidance for Adrian as to where to cut. I also pre-colored the beak and cut the pie cleaner in half.
Wrapping him insects
A lot of birds eat insects and that is how I introduced their presence in our Angry Birds week. I found these glittery bugs are our dollar store last year I believe. I also provided pieces of yarn (only had blue in hand...). The activity was to cocoon each bug into the yarn by wrapping them up. It's totally a fine motor activity and it was not easy. See Adrian's work below. It's loose and tangled. We'll have to wrap more! :)
Adrian's Work
Feedings "worms" to the Angry Birds
Cut one pipe cleaner into small pieces and twist them and bend them so they look like little worms. Put them into a tiny bowl, provide a clothespin and voila! I used a regular size clothespin for this. It's more difficult but the smaller clothespins are no challenge to Adrian anymore. Adrian used the clothespin to pick up worms from the bowl and feed them to the birds. As you can see, they were all fed. :) I made these Angry Birds myself using big pompoms, felt, hot glue and goggly eyes. My son LOVED them and the idea that he was taking care of the birds.
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