Hello, Bud Families!
June is already finished and we are moving on to the month of July! The warmth of June brought our classroom new and marvelous things to discover as we learned about the life cycles of frogs and butterflies.
We began our study by introducing five friendly little caterpillars and a whole family of tadpoles into our classroom so that we could see their life cycles right before our very eyes! The class chose names for all of our new friends, and some of the highlights include Excavator, Yeezy, Butterfly Dream, Horse Riding, and Rawry. The butterflies were the first to change, going from caterpillars to cocoons to butterflies! It was sad to let them go, but we made butterfly feeders filled with yummy nectar so that they can come back and visit us any time they want to!
While learning about frogs, the classroom was fascinated by all the bright and poisonous colors different species were! We decided to paint our very own frogs to ward off predators.
As we learned more about the life cycle of frogs, the class had some fantastic questions for us to explore. They were fascinated by how frogs’ eyes worked and how they croaked, as well as how butterflies made their cocoons and what they ate! We took this opportunity to explore our questions as in the Bud room we believe that curiosity is our greatest tool for learning! We learned about the unique way that a frog’s body worked and talked about all the delicious food that butterflies eat, and even fed them ourselves!
We took some time to learn through other explorations as well. We played Five Little Speckled Frogs with ourselves as the frogs, we fed alphabet flies to Bruce the Frog, we used our art skills to paint our very own butterflies, and we had some sensory experiences with what a pond feels like! We ended the month with a big play pond adventure as we pretended to be both butterflies and frogs going through all the different steps of their life cycles.
For July, our focus will be shifting to learning about our emotions– a very important topic for Buds as emotions play a critical role at this age. We will learn how to identify our different emotions as well as how to recognize them in different people. We will also learn some regulation skills as we accept all the different aspects of the many colorful feelings we feel each and every day! Emotions are a scary thing until we are able to talk about them, express them, and regulate them.
As we get closer to these little Buds moving on to be big Branchers, please keep in mind that they will not be able to move up until they are potty trained. Potty training is a journey for every child that they are at the helm of. Every child has their own time when they feel confident and ready to begin potty training and they may need some extra time. While we encourage and support them, potty training can be stressful on little ones when they are not yet ready. Please keep this in mind and know that growth will come and it will come when the child is ready. Feel free to come talk if you have any questions or concerns on this matter.
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop!” Confucius
All of the love, Miss Madeline, Miss Jillian, and Miss Sidney