FISH!

Today we learned about fish. We discussed fish facts while looking at a book about hundreds of different kinds of fish. Again, the kids were hooting and hollering about all the grotesque or the funny-faced fish they saw in the book. Their enthusiasm was catchy!

We discussed what fish eat, where they live, how they breathe, etc. When I told them that fish have a backbone like the kids have, they all wanted to feel each other's backbones. Rachel volunteered to touch her toes so that everyone could run their finger up her backbone - thanks, Rachel!

After the factual lesson about fish, it was time for some fantasy. I read them "A Fish out of Water" by Helen Palmer. It's about a boy and his goldfish - he feeds the fish too much and it grows to gigantic proportions. It was a fun book and led to a discussion about pet fish. So then we showed them Mr. Pepper. Mr. Pepper (as Daniel named him) came to visit us for the week (he's now back at the pet store), and the kids had fun watching him swim.

No, you haven't forgotten your glasses. My photography skills and camera (it won't do close-ups) leave something to be desired.

The kids worked hard at copying the letter F and coloring in the fish on their papers.

Now it was time to get the wiggles out. I played "The Goldfish" song, by Laurie Berkner and the kids went crazy dancing! Really crazy! The song talked about fish brushing teeth and washing hair and was very silly, so the kids acted it out and danced and spazzed.

After all of that tiring dancing, it was time to fuel up my fish. We made little ponds with fish, by taking Ritz crackers, spreading on blue-tinted cream cheese and swimming the goldfish in the cream cheese. They all ate them up! (even the ones who seemed to think they might not like cream cheese)

Ellie was quite attached to the lobster.

We then read "The Rainbow Fish". It had a good moral about sharing and the kids even picked up on that. When it was time to share the silver scales for their own rainbow fish, everyone shared and didn't grab. It's nice to see the lessons getting through!

We also all took fishing poles and went fishing for fish with numbers and practiced counting (I forgot to take pictures).

It was sort of funny how much glue some of the kids got on their hands, until there was more tissue paper stuck to their fingers than the papers!

Finished product! They all did a great job.

They were all itching to go out to the trampoline, so I released them out into the wild. I actually had more fish activities planned, but they couldn't be caged inside any longer. Now, being caged outside wasn't a problem...