Turtle Times July 12-16 2011

We splashed into "Turtle Times" where we found creatures of land and water who can pull their heads, feet, and tails inside their shell to hide from their enemies.

We practiced counting backwards from ten in a favorite book of the week- Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond by Cathryn Falwell.

We skipped across the pond on the backs of turtles with different colored shells while we called out the color of the shell- kind of like Turtle Hopscotch!

Turtles hatch from eggs so our sensory table was filled with different colored plastic turtles and eggs.

Using dry erase markers, we decorated turtle shells on the table top covered in contact paper. We were able to wipe off our creations and start all over again. There were some mighty fancy turtle shells! This was definitely a favorite activity of the week.

 

  

By far, our favorite turtle friend is Tiny Tim- you know, the turtle who drank up all the water and ate up all the soap in the bathtub? In his honor, we blew bubbles as we sang his song:

I have a little turtle, (one hand on top of the other, wiggle fingers)
His name is Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water. (make "cup" with hand, pretend to drink)
He ate up all the soap. (make eating motion with fingers to lips)
And now my turtle is sick in bed (rub stomach)
With a bubble in his throat! (tap mouth with fingers to make bubble sound)
POP! (clap hands)

Many of us experienced Tiny Tim's dilemma when we sucked in instead of blowing out!

We created turtle shells with green playdough...We used plastic knives, forks and sticks to make designs in the playdough.

Another favorite turtle is from Susan Lowell's book about a tortoise who lives in the desert and has a race with a jackrabbit- The Tortoise and  the Jackrabbit. Any guesses who won?

In order to empathize with turtles and understand why they move so slow, we tried moving with "shells" or pillows on our backs. We had to move without losing our shell. It was sloooooow going. Now we understand...

As cumbersome as they are, we learned along with a little turtle in Eric Carle's book, The Foolish Tortoise, just how important that shell is for protection.

Using sponges, ferns and flowers to dip into a variety of colors of paint, we designed a shell for a turtle. After spending the week observing turtle shells in books and magazines, we felt pretty competent in designing one of our own.

The finished products!