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We began our day with our calendar and weather routine. Our fingerplays this month have focused on sea creatures and the month has been sprinkled with ocean-related activities. Today our main activity was making starfish (and other creatures) out of homemade cold porcelain.
The children and I began by mixing cornstarch...
... and baking soda...
...with water. I heated and stirred the mixture until it began to thicken and have a consistency like mashed potatoes, then we all kneaded the dough after it had cooled a bit.
It was great fun to use the rolling pin and cookie cutters to create the starfish, and it was a fun way to work on shape recognition. Pushing down with the cookie cutters and rolling pin was good for working on gross motor skills, while delicately removing the star shapes from the cookie cutters without breaking the pieces required delicate fine motor control.
After cleaning up, we headed to a nearby park. We noticed a stand of Queen Anne's Lace, a flower that hosts Black Swallowtail butterflies. We looked over several plants in hopes of finding eggs or larvae.
We didn't find any Black Swallowtails, but we did find a ladybird beetle larva.
Once we got to the park, the newest Blue Sky Daycare child had lots of fun exploring all the different parts of the park. There were stairs to climb up, tubes to climb through...
...slides to ride down...
...motorcycles to ride...
...holes to peek out of...
...and wheels to turn.
Meanwhile, the other children had fun playing in the sand, going downt the slides, and interacting with some of the other children and adults at the park.
All were invited to join in a game of tag, but since it was so hot, not many children partook.
On our way home, we checked some milkweed leaves for signs of Monarch butterfly caterpillars and we were delighted to find two leaves with eggs! We are almost certain these are Monarch eggs, but only time will tell. If so, we're going to have lots of fun caring for caterpillars and watching them grow and change.
See you tomorrow!