cutting out bats
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A couple of weeks ago, I spontaneously needed to run a preschool group center and had to come up with an activity to have at my table, so I quickly drew a spider that the kids could cut out an glue onto a spider web. I did it with my paint pens and it turned out to be a great activity. It worked out so well that I did it with two other classes that week. Last week I decided to do something similar, so I drew bat wings, and the body and head, and had the kids cut out the parts and glue them together to make a bat.
In one session, A couple of kids were cutting out their bat parts, and they were both talking about random different things at the same time, and were not listening to each other or me, and when I say random, I could barely even recognize what they were talking about. So to bring them back to task, I had them stop talking and listen to me while they were cutting. I then regaled them with facts about bats while they were cutting out their bats. I told them about the smallest bat, the largest bat. What bats eat, where bats live. What baby bats are called (pups), and how they are mammals (and what mammals are). They engaged, did their cutting, and listened at the same time.
I then went to another class for a while, and when I came back to their class, I sat and worked with a different student, and a different activity was going on, but one of my previous student chimed in to a friend next to him and said “hey, did you know that baby bats are called pups, and the smallest bat is called a bumblebee bat?”
I was so pleased. Not only did we get out cutting in, but they actually listened to the interesting information that I shared, remembered the information, and passed that information on to a friend. I can just picture them going home that night and regaling their parents with bat information. It makes me so happy.
Any way, Here is a pdf of my bat drawing that you all can print and use in your sessions. Sorry, but you will have to look up your own bat facts to go with the drawing.
