Spring Insects

Though this week was a short one, Room 12 kept very busy. It’s that time of year when caterpillars, butterflies, ladybugs and flies are a frequent subject. Has your child mentioned Buddy, the pet fly that visits all of the classrooms? In the Fall, Buddy visited us and now that warm weather is back, he’s a frequent visitor. Some children became quite anxious when a fly is in the classroom, but by simply explaining that the fly is Buddy who likes to visit all of the classrooms, the anxiety is lessoned. In fact, now whenever Buddy flies by, whether we are in our classroom, walking in the hall, or in the Big Room, someone always calls out “There’s Buddy.”

During the last two weeks, we had many special visitors to our Circle Time: many birds and many farm animals. When I put away the farm animals last Friday, I searched thru my stuffed animals to find a new friend whose sound we could imitate. I saw a bee and took it knowing it’s good for this time of year. When I brought out the bee on Tuesday, many children called out “That’s not a bee.” Well, it looked like a bee to me……black and yellow stripes, antennae, and wings. I kept saying that yes, it’s a bee, and they kept saying no, that’s not a bee. Finally, one of the children said “But it has legs and ears.” Then someone said “It’s a bear.” That caused me to take a better look and sure enough, my bee is really Winnie the Pooh in a costume. I was speechless, which doesn’t happen too often. I had been duped by Winnie the Pooh. That caused me to go deep into my cabinet to find my bee hand puppet. Now the children were satisfied that we had a real bee visiting. On Thursday, a ladybug joined us, too, during Circle Time. Look at the pictures of our Bear Bee and real Bee. Would you have been able to tell the difference or be duped like me?