Some animals, like herds of elephants or gaggles of geese, like to stay to together. Staying close helps animals protect their young. Sheep like to huddle together and, wherever one goes, the others follow. During this Invitation to create, children were given a variety of textured materials from which to choose and explore. During the art project, children learned that materials could be used in multiple ways. For example, children could use a cotton ball as a stamping tool or even to tear apart to create clouds or sheeted. Process-based art helps children take risks and think for themselves about how they create art.
For fine motor skills, they were encouraged to draw humps in their journals. Their favorite free time activity lately has been dress up!

Veterinarians are medical doctors for animals.  They help a variety of animals such as pets, farm animals and wild animals.  Just like humans sometimes animals require medical attention. Paw prints in snow or mud can indicate which animals were roaming around outside.  If the prints have four toes on both the front and hind feet then it might be a fox, a coyote or just your family dog.  During this Invitation to Create, children explored an art technique called stenciling.  They discovered that a stencil helps create a specific image on paper when they paint over it. This art project allows children to use a stenciling tool, their own hands to create unique paw designs or both! Process-based art encourages children to select materials, create a plan and implement their own creative ideas.
They were encouraged to trace the lower case letter r using all the colors of the rainbow and for the uppercase R they traced the R and then fixed up R using gauze, they wrapped the gauze around the R. 
They were also encouraged to draw a rainbow in their journals!

Similar to humans, gorillas carry their babies in their arms.  Gorillas are highly intelligent animals.  Wild gorillas have been seen using sticks to gauge water depth and use bamboo as ladders to help their infants climb.  During this Invitation to Create, children explored using a comb as an art tool to create their gorilla artwork.  Through this process, children begin to understand that art is not restricted to the traditional paper and paint!

Animals such as otters and manatees carry their babies on their chest.  Manatees and otters also hold their babies on their chests when they swim.  Manatees are large and slow while otters are small and fast. We talked about the body parts you move when swimming.  They pretended to do different swimming strokes and kicks!  I taped letter C pages to the bottom of the tables, they were encouraged to lay on their backs and decorate their Cc page. We talked about swimming with something on your chest and decided it would be kind of hard to do!  
C is for cat, carrot and car!  They looked for all the letter C's and pictures then colored them.  C is a special letter because it makes two very different sounds.  We discussed who has the letter C in their name.  They made letter C puzzles, colored and cut letter C.
For fine motor we drew lines in our journals. For part of our circle time they took turns drawing a card, counting and putting with the corresponding number.

Animals such as kangaroos, marsupials and opossums carry their babies in a pouch. A baby joey can be as tiny as a jelly bean when it is born. It crawls up into its mother's pouch and stays there for nine months drinking milk and growing strong. Today they made a Kangaroo Pouch.  They colored a joey and the pouch.  
We sorted letters Rr & Ss and drew lines in our journals. They created animal designs using tangrams.  They also sorted kangaroo letters and put the joey in the matching pouch.

Animals such as chimpanzees, swans and tree frogs carry their babies on their backs. Baby turtles go for a ride on their mother's back as well!  
We played Mama Monkey's games, each child selected a card, said if it was upper case or lower case Ss or Rr and then placed on the correct mat.  The younger kids simply said if it was an S or an R.
The children were encouraged to color the shell of their turtle and make shapes if desired. I had a child today, make dots on the shell and tell me, "the dots are the bumps on the tortoise shell!" We used sticks, stumps and wood slices to create a habitat for their turtles.  Of course, I through in some wood letter tiles for literacy!
For fine motor skills, I showed the children a banana, asked what letter it resembled.   We discussed that it looks similar to the letter Cc. We doodled in our fine motor journals and drew bananas. We used marshmallows and paint to stamp and used a q-tip to paint their names.

Fish carry their babies in their mouths! Other animals such as dogs and cats also carry their babies in their mouths. Today we created a big fish mouth using a cup and markers.  
We also played with dress up - this has been a favorite lately!  I only snapped two pics but they had fun!  

There are many different organizations that help families adopt animals.  We discussed what kind of animal each of us would want to adopt.  I heard snake, puppy, cat and fish! The kiddos made a pet fish!  We looked the inspiration photo and discussed colors and textures. We used paper plates, coffee filter, tissue paper, markers and glue.  
For fine motor skills, we glued ovals in our fine motor journals. 

Spatula Painting! You need a cake and decorations for a party! Today we used spatulas to spread icing (aka paint) on the cake. Not only did they have fun doing this activity, but it is also great fine motor work, because to spread the icing (aka paint), they are moving their wrists back and forth to spread the paint on the paper. 
We also cut streamers and glued in our fine motor journals.
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