bug week - working with mommy

Today was take your family to work day! What you didn't get that memo?  Oh, right and it is Saturday so for most of you that is not a work day.

Okay, it was take Sam, Avery and Chris to work day! 

I had a family pond critter program this morning that I was really excited about teaching and wanted the family to come with me to check it out. I love getting to share what I do with the girls and especially Chris.

Sam had a great time and got to do a lot of netting in the pond. Avery too had a great time, got super muddy and lost at least one net in the pond (Virginia if you are reading this I will fish them out I promise!). But Avery was very attached to me which made doing my job a bit of a challenge. Chris and the girls only stayed for the first half of the program because it was just too hard for me to be attentive to the other families and look after mine.

The program was a big success and all the families had a good time. We saw a ton of critters, birds, frogs, muscrats and turtles. If you haven't taken your kids to a public family program at your local nature center or zoo it is a MUST this summer!

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The Nitty Gritty!

One more idea that I wanted to share with my educators out there was the craft that we did today at the very end of the family program. We had kids of a wide age range so I wanted to do something that I thought would be enjoyable for all of them.

I photocopied pictures of pond critters and animals. I blew them up so that they were about the size of a half sheet of paper. Then I cut them into pieces. For some of the critters I simply cut them into four pieces and others were as many as 15-20. This way there would be puzzles of varying difficulties for the kids. The kids put together the critter puzzles, then glued their puzzles onto a big piece of cardstock. Then I had informational cards sitting out with pictures of each of the critters and their names. They had to match their picture to the card to identify what they had put together. I encourage the parents to read the information to their child and have them write the name of the critter on their puzzle. It was a super simple project that could be adapted for a wide range of topics. Love that!