Cancelled: Silverwood Park - Samantha Longley and Cora Williams - residency - 2 hours
Silverwood Park - Seth Erlab and Chelsea Novotny - residency - 2.45 hours
Silverwood Park - Seth Erlab and Cora Williams - residency - 2 hours
Tuesday was my first session of Doodlebugs! Doodlebugs is similar to Green Beans but is the next age group up. Participants are 4-5 years old and unlike Green Beans, this is a drop off program. The program is two hours long but has the same basic schedule as Green Beans. We have explore time with clean up, circle time with question of the day, a nature lesson, a bathroom break, a snack break while a story is read, art time and then outside time.
For Doodlebugs this week we were talking about fish! We had a large stuffed animal fish which Seth used to have the kids identify parts of fish that make them different from humans. Seth clearly has a wealth of teaching experience and I was able to learn a lot from him. With children this age, it’s often difficult to get them to be quiet and pay attention. He had lots of good phrasing like asking if we could “turn our voices off”. Doodlebugs have a policy where the teachers say “there is a bubble in your mouth and it can’t be popped until a teacher points to you!” The kids responded really well to this. He also had a ‘tickle rainbow’ when he was leading a lesson on the rug. This is where everyone can gather around but if Seth can tickle you, you’re too close. Even language like “okay everyone sit on your pockets” was helpful to observe.
For the craft we did a basic metal embossing. Everyone got a sheet and a wooden ‘pencil’ that they used to draw fish. After they were finished creating their scene or school of fish, they could colour the scene. Some kids drew just fish, some added the environment, some added other sea creatures. Chelsea led this and did a demo of the technique and how she drew her fish.
For Green Beans this week, Sam was out and Seth came in to teach about ladybugs. He brought some live ladybugs! Our ladybug nature lesson was very basic and suited to the age group. We talked a lot about what ladybugs do when it’s cold. Later, when we went outside, we brought the live ladybugs so we could experiment and see what ladybugs do when their cold. The art portion was making a little ladybug finger puppet. It was mostly just assembly assisted by the adult accompanying the child. It wa nice to get to observe this lesson as one of my teachings will be with the Doodlebugs about ladybugs. The craft will be different but seeing the nature lesson was helpful for my own preparation.
Next week is my first teaching! It’ll be at Silverwood with Green Beans! Stay tuned to hear about my lesson on rainbows...
