Exploring Life at the Pond
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.
We've had a wonderful first week of our pond theme with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time).
Today I wanted to share a glimpse into our first few lessons.
Lesson 1 was all about turtles. We made a fun turtle pull toy using a bowl, wiggle eyes, and paper. The preschoolers had a great time making these three-dimensional turtles.
We read The Turtle, the Beaver, and the Pond. This was a lovely story focusing on how our actions sometimes affect others in ways we're not even aware of.
Another favorite today was the Shell Math. This table top activity used a paper game board with turtles that each had numbers (1-14) on their backs.
The topic for Lesson 2 was Snake. The children wiggled their bodies like snakes and answered the question, "What other body parts can you move like wiggly snakes?"
We read Pond Circle, which is an absolutely gorgeous picture book. The story builds on each page, which means preschoolers will start to memorize the pattern and be able to help tell the story.
Our process art for the day was lots of fun too! We made snakes using pipe cleaners and beads.
We receive quite a few invitation to create activities in each of our preschool curriculum kits from Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time).
I love that the preschoolers can build their creative thinking and problem solving skills by participating in these open-ended art experiences each week.
This theme has also meant lots tons of messy sensory activities. We've made pond habitats from water beads as well as small gems.
On Day three, Lesson 3 involved learning about tadpoles which meant an exciting opportunity for the preschoolers to learn about how these fascinating animals grow and change.
We put small figurines in a bin of water and let the children explore the frog life cycle.
And last but not least we mixed blue and green food coloring in water to create a really cool pond-themed mixing and measuring activity.
Without a doubt, the preschoolers had quite the adventure this week learning about life around the pond.
Don't forget to check back next week as we learn about Pond Plants with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time). These activities are for sure some of my absolute favorites and we can't wait to get started with them!