Early Math Counts

As April showers bring May flowers, so too, do they bring bugs.  This month, we are going to explore Bugs as our Thursday Theme.  The possibilities are endless as bugs are endlessly fascinating to so many children.

If you find creepy crawlies unbearable, you may have to fake it for the sake of the kids. The children will watch your reactions to see how they are supposed to feel about unfamiliar experiences or things.  You have all seen children running and screaming from a couple of buzzing bees.  They learned this from somewhere.  It is an unnecessary overreaction to bees.  For the most part, bees will not hurt you (unless there is an allergy- – which is a whole other  situation).

The children in your program will love studying bugs.  There are so many mathematical concepts in the world of bugs.  All insects have 3 body parts, 2 antennae, and 6 legs.  This alone is a good starting place.

On Mondays, I am going to introduce you to all sorts of cool bug manipulatives, on Tuesdays we are going to explore counting and how we can use insects as a place to work on early counting skills.  On Wednesdays, we will explore a few websites with fun bug games or teacher materials to supplement your bug exploration.  On Thursdays, we will look at ways to develop an integrated curriculum study on insects, and on Fridays, we will talk about good parent newsletters as a means of communicating about the thematic insect unit.