Stand-up Caterpillar and the color purple!

This is a repost from last year. It goes along with our Colorful Spring theme for this week. I am doing a repost because Connor is not feeling well today, so Lauren did not come today. We were going to paint flowers today, but we will do that craft next week. I immediately thought of this post - because the caterpillars were sooo cute and fun to make!

Day 3 of our week - Our theme this week is bugs and the color of the week is purple.

Project- I found this project idea from Family Fun Magazine the May 2006 issue. The magazine called it A Stand-up Guy. It is a critter - we called it a caterpillar - made out of practice foam golf balls and foam cut into circles and a 12-inch wooden skewer. First, I sliced 2 foam golf balls into thirds using a serrated knife, then I cut 12 colored craft foam circles (trace the cut balls, for perfect circles). Then I had Connor and Lauren assemble the bug, by poking the craft foam circles and ball pieces in a pattern on the skewer. I had Connor and Lauren lay their pattern of foam circles and golf balls on the floor first. Finally, Connor and Lauren drew a face on a third ball with permanent marker. I put the antennae on ( I used black pipe cleaner that I curled at the ends, the magazine says to use 2-3 inch pieces of 18 gauge wire). At last, Connor and Lauren pushed the face ball on the top of the skewer and they were done! The magazine has you put the critter/caterpillar into a planter, but Connor and Lauren just wanted to set their creations up in the house! Materials needed: (per caterpillar) 3 practice foam golf balls, 12 foam circles, 1 wooden skewer, wire (or pipe cleaner), black permanent marker.

Activity 1- Connor and Lauren practiced writing the letter q and the word queen. We used the worksheet Printing Practice - worksheet 5 from the website http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/
Activity 2- I made a math worksheet for this activitity. Connor and Lauren had to count the plums (purple!) and then draw a line to the matching number in the left column. This activity emphasized counting, one-to-one correspondence and fine motor skills (drawing a straight line)

Activity 3- I made a beginning sounds activity for Connor and Lauren. They had to circle the beginning letter/sound for zebra, van and kangaroo.