Ready for Reptile Week

It’s Reptile Week at the Cottage! We can’t wait to explore these crawling, slithering, cold-blooded creatures with you! Join us by participating in several reptile-themed activities, and share your adventures and creations on our Cottage Facebook page.

The Colorful World of Eric Carle and The Mixed-Up Chameleon
At the Cottage, we love author Eric Carle! His memorable and uplifting stories are always accompanied by beautiful illustrations. Watch this animated version of his beloved story, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, created by Illuminated Films.

After watching the story, try these chameleon activities at home!

Mixing Colors with the Mixed-Up Chameleon
For this activity, you will need tape, a Ziploc bag, a Sharpie, and paint (or shaving cream and food coloring). Draw the outline of the Mixed-Up Chameleon on the bag. Squirt two primary colors (red, yellow, blue) of paint inside the bag. Close the bag and tape the edges to the floor or table. Allow your child to squish the paint around and watch the chameleon change colors! Instead of paint, you could squirt shaving cream into the bag with drops of food coloring. This activity provides a great opportunity to talk about primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and secondary colors (orange, green, purple) which are formed when primary colors are combined (red+yellow=orange, yellow+blue=green, red+blue=purple). To see an example of this activity, click on this link - Play, Teach, Repeat.

Counting and Strengthening Fine Motor Muscles
Chelsey, author of blog Buggy and Buddy, has created a great Mixed-Up Chameleon game that incorporates counting and fine motor skills. Click here to see the activity - “Feed Me Flies.” For this game, you’ll need two pieces of paper, crayons, kid scissors, tape, a small tube or container, a clothespin or tweezers, and a die (optional). On one piece of paper, print the chameleon created by Chelsey (or draw your own). Click here to print - chameleon. Next, ask your child to color and cut out the chameleon. Tape this colorful creation to your tube or container. To create the flies that your chameleon will eat, Chelsey uses black pom pom balls. If you don’t have pom pom balls at home, your child can create flies with your second piece of paper. Just tear off small pieces of paper and crumple them into balls. Now, the real fun begins! Ask your child to use the clothespin or tweezers to get all of the “flies” (balls of paper) into the chameleon’s “mouth” (container). You can count with your child as he/she feeds each fly to the chameleon.
Number Recognition Challenge: Ask your child to roll a die and place that number of flies into the chameleon’s mouth.
Sibling Challenge: Ask siblings to create their own chameleons. Siblings then take turns rolling the die and feeding their chameleons. Once all of the flies have been eaten, count the flies to see which chameleon ate more!

Practicing Patterns with Snakes
Recognizing and creating patterns are important reading readiness strategies that we teach at the Cottage. Here’s a fun and simple way to incorporate these strategies at home! All you need is a black marker, a piece of paper, and crayons. With your marker and paper, draw three or more snakes with horizontal stripes down their backs. Using crayons, begin a pattern that your child will complete. For example on one snake, color the first stripe purple, the second stripe blue, the third stripe purple, the fourth stripe blue. Then, ask your child to complete the pattern. Create a pattern for each snake or ask your child to create his/her own pattern! See example below!

Exploring Emotions with Reptiles
At the Cottage, we strive to help children understand their emotions and express them in healthy ways. Your child may be feeling lots of new emotions right now given the current circumstances. Hopefully this game provides an outlet for expressing these emotions and an opportunity for talking about them with your child while incorporating a little reptile fun! First, click here - Emotions - to access and print the Character Emotion Chart created by Melissa of The Reading Roundup. Click here - black and white - for a version that your child can color. (If you don’t have a printer, ask your child to help you draw faces that correspond with each emotion.) Next, you and/or your child will cut out each emotion on the chart. Spread these emotions around face-up on the floor. Now you are ready to play! Instruct your child to move around the room like a reptile until you say “stop.” Here are several examples: stomp like a dinosaur, slither like a snake, crawl like a lizard, creep slowly like a turtle. When you say “stop” your child must pick up the nearest emotion card and act out that emotion with facial expressions, body language, and/or words. If your child is unsure about a particular emotion, help him/her understand by explaining a situation when someone might feel that way or by showing that emotion with your face/body/words. Continue until your child has crawled/stomped/slithered to every emotion!
Matching Challenge: Print/draw and cut out two sets of emotion cards. Play an emotion matching game with your child!
Sibling Challenge: Stack the emotion cards face-down. One sibling draws a card from the top of the stack and must act out that emotion for the other sibling to guess. If guessed correctly, place that card in a separate pile. If guessed incorrectly, place that card at the bottom of the original stack. Take turns until all emotion cards are guessed correctly!

Created By melissa of the reading roundup

Fun with Franklin
The Franklin series written by Paulette Bourgeois follows a lovable turtle learning important life lessons with his family and friends. At the Cottage, we love reading Franklin books and hope you enjoy this read-a-loud version of Franklin Is Messy. In this story, Franklin learns the importance of cleaning up his bedroom. We have cleanup time everyday at the Cottage where each class is responsible for cleaning a certain area of the building or playground. This not only makes the cleanup process easier, but also gives our students a sense of community, cooperation, and responsibility. After listening to this story, talk with your child about ways that he/she can help around the house. Maybe during this quarantine (and beyond), he/she could be responsible for feeding the dog, watering certain plants, setting the table for dinner, or making his/her bed. Scholastic has provided a cute idea for making “Kindness Coupons” with your child. Click here - Scholastic - for the directions. Whether you make coupons or simply a daily list of tasks, this will hopefully provide your child with a little extra purpose and sense of accomplishment while helping you with household chores!