Ducklings & Butterflies

Ducklings

THEY'RE SO FLUFFY!

And so our week began, with a classroom full of little "Agneses", thrilled to meet our fluffy little ducklings! (thankfully minus the extra tight "Agnes squeeze"). 

We are participating in a duckling-raising program through Glenwood Memorial Gardens! We're in charge of naming and caring for our ducklings for 2 weeks. It has been lovely meeting and snuggling with our new little miracles. 

We even gave them a little swim this afternoon!

Butterflies

We've all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, but have you ever really examined the illustrations? Mr. Carle has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique to make butterflies! First we painted our paper. We added drips and drops in every colour!

Once our paper had dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly.  A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

Criteria for Strong Illustrations

Our writing has become really strong! We began the year writing a beginning sound or a word or two. Now? We can write a complete idea independently! Each day we work hard at our writing, and our growth is amazing! SO much to be proud of!

But lately, our illustrations have not matched our strong writing. At times, we have not given our illustrations as much effort. How can we make our pictures as awesome as our writing?

Students looked at some examples of illustrations and brainstormed what makes an illustration dazzling. Then we gathered and sorted our ideas, and together generated criteria for a strong illustration!

We have already had a chance to apply our learning! Sorry, though, no pictures of the students' illustrations today ... these are part of a top secret Mother's Day project!

Some spring butterflies have showed up in our room today, too!

We also removed our egg turner to prepare for hatching! By Monday we should have some barnyard news! We can't wait!

Drips, Drops, Stripes and Spots

Things we have plenty of in our classroom: 

• friends
• smiles
• silly jokes
• germs
• CREATIVITY!

We put our oodles of creativity to work this week and tackled an art project! 

We've all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, but have you ever really examined the illustrations?

Mr. Carle not only wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but he illustrated it, too! He has a unique method for making designed, textured paper and then cutting it into the pieces for his pictures. 

We followed Mr. Carle's paper-making technique. 

First, we painted our paper. We added drips, drops, stripes and spots in every colour!

See? No shortage of creativity in our class! Beautiful designs, boys and girls!

Mrs. Beliveau's mug even got some "creativity" on it too... 

Occupational hazard

We set our papers aside to dry overnight, and then tackled our next project ... clean up!

Thankfully, the boys and girls in our class are always willing to help out. Surprisingly, the art room was nearly sparkling in no time at all!

Could you come clean Mrs. Beliveau's house, please? Can anyone vacuum?

Once our paper had dried, we used tracers to cut out the shapes to make a butterfly. 

A little glue, and ta da! Colourful, Carle-inspired butterflies!

And just when we thought we had wrapped up with chicks ...

Welcome, little guy!

Eric Carle painting project inspired by Deep Space Sparkle.