Octopus Patterning

Today was another fun-filled day in 4K!  We learned some interesting facts about the octopus, such as it has 8 tentacles, has "suckers" on its tentacles to help keep it from slipping, can squirt ink to protect itself, and has no bones in its body so it can squeeze into tight places!  Ask your child to tell you an interesting fact about the octopus that he/she learned today!

Our story was about a tickly octopus that liked to tickle the ocean animals.  One day it tickled an oyster and the oyster accidentally lost its pearl.  The octopus had to help get it, but ran into trouble where it had to squeeze into a tight spot and came across a mean eel.  Ask your child how the octopus escaped from the eel!

We spent some time talking about patterns and even read a patterning story.  The children are getting so good at patterns!

For our project today, we cut out an octopus and then used Fruit Loops as the "suckers" on the tentacles.  Our job was to create Fruit Loop patterns on each of the tentacles.  Since we worked very hard, Miss McCabe put on some ocean music to listen to while we worked!

Afterwards, we played in the classroom.

During playtime, the children could choose to make a jellyfish to add to our ocean mural.  This task involved learning the first step for tying our shoes!  We learned how to thread the ribbon through the hole, make an X, tuck the end through the hole, and then pull both ends tight.  They did a fantastic job with this!  I am so proud of my 4K students!

Look at how wonderful our ocean mural is looking!

We had a letter O snack too!  We ate cheerio's and of course the children wanted to try some Fruit Loops, which are also shaped like the letter O.  In Clare's words today: "This snack is O-tastic!"

After snack, we learned the song "Slippery Fish" and the actions to go with each animal.  The children laughed at the end when the whale burped.

Then we chose our favorite animals from the song "Slippery Fish" by Charlotte Diamond.  We colored it and then attached a popsicle stick to make a stick puppet.

Of course we had to use our stick puppets to act out the song.  We got into groups by animals and each animal got a turn to dance in the middle of the carpet before being eaten by the next animal.  We also compared and contrasted numbers - which animal had the most, least, and so forth.  It was a lot of fun and I know they will be requesting to sing this song again next week!

We ended the day by playing outside.  Have a great weekend! :)