With the ending of our alphabet curriculum, we began our newest unit this week: an author study of Eric Carle!  Carle is one of the most iconic authors and illustrators in children’s literature; his simple and repetitive narratives couple with his bright, vibrant illustrations to create the perfect stories for children in the preschool age group.

This week, we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Grouchy Ladybug and designed many interdisciplinary projects and activities to accompany the stories.

Math Projects:  Both books we read this week provided ample opportunities for development of a variety of math skills.  Brown Bear, for example, shows a multitude of animals with differing numbers of legs.  Sounds like a sorting project to me!  We also invited children to bring in bears from home on Tuesday, which we used to develop categories to describe our bears and make a graph.  When reading Ladybug, we discussed how each ladybug has a different number of spots.  Using paper ladybugs (each labeled with a different number), the children played a counting game to match the correct number of spots to each ladybug.  Throughout that story, the grouchy ladybug encounters a different insect or animal each hour, so the children took some time this week to make their own clocks, each labeled with the corresponding creature!

Science and Sensory Projects:  While Brown Bear focuses on what animals can see, we took the chance to talk about all 5 of our senses.  One small group this week played “Tugboat, Tugboat, What Do You Smell?”  They brainstormed different things we may smell, then drew pictures to accompany their list.  When we moved on to ladybug, we were thrilled to welcome dozens of new visitors to our classroom: a swarm of ladybugs!  Settled safely in containers, the Tugboats practiced their observation skills by quietly, carefully studying these tiny creatures and talking about what they saw, smelled, or even heard.

Language Projects:  Literature is clearly a language activity on its own, but it can also be a brilliant spring board for further development.  When we brought our bears to class, for example, the children practiced conversation skills by taking turns, describing their bears, and listening to one another.  With a small group of younger Tugboats, we did an activity in which they had to hold up a crayon whose color corresponded to the different animals found in Brown Bear, identifying colors by name and connecting them to similar objects.  We capped off the week by making masks for each animal the Grouchy Ladybug challenges with fights on his journey, then acted it out.  In the end, we all agreed that it was far more fun to share the aphids in friendly way!