Birds, Leaves and Cat Puppets

We were in the middle of group time, and something was happening outside the window that I couldn't ignore.  We took a closer look.

Click on the photo to get a better look, but there were a couple of birds feeding on the leftover seeds from the sunflowers.  I had recently pulled up all of the others, and left this one just for the birds.  We were glad to see that some of them stopped by!  We have also seen quite a few crows every day on our way to the bus stop.  Adam and I were watching a great documentary about crows and how smart they are.  Crows are one of three animals in the world who use tools.  (Chimps and elephants are the other two.)  Did you know that if you do something mean to a crow, the crow will recognize your face and tell ALL of the other crows that your face means bad behavior?  They will ALL respond to you accordingly and warn others of your presence.  Amazing!  They also have dialects with each other, and have a crazy amount of calls that mean different things. (Cat- person- food etc.)  

On our way home from the soggy bus stop yesterday, we gathered some leaves to bring back and take a closer look at.

I like to grab one that still has some green on it so the kids can compare the color change.

They took some time and just examined the colors.

These ones reminded me of fire.

Off to the table we went to create a black cat paper bag puppet.

The kids colored a large black oval onto the bag.  This would be the body.

I didn't take photos of the "building" of the cats.  The kids had some help.

We hadn't created a paper bag puppet in a while, so the kids had to learn what to do with their hand to make the puppet talk.

This is how they created the inside of the cat mouth.

We continue name writing with the kids who can do it.

We hung up some of the leaves because God makes art, too.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥