How can you get the piggy into the pen?

We have been playing with science again! I love science with young children! 
We explored FORCE and MOTION. 
Not really officially part of our curriculum, but it can be part of science inquiry, so I think it fits! 
So I asked my children...How can you get your piggy into it's pen? 
Then I gave them a straw, a pompom and a paper plate. 
The children then "experimented" and tried out various ways to get the pig into the pen. It was fascinating to watch! Some tried to swat the pom pom with the straw and others tried to scoop the pom pom.  Then, quite by "accident" one of the children was playing with her straw and sucked the air out and picked up the pig and put it on the plate! She was so excited she jumped up and told everyone exactly how to do it! So cute! Then everyone tried it. 
Then one child discovered that the paper plate can move when you blow a cushion of air underneath the plate! So exciting! 
We decided to have races down the hallway using the paper plates, straws and taking the piggy pom poms for a ride! SUPER FUN!

Look! I did it! 

A cushion of air underneath the plate and it can MOVE! COOL!

Word Surgery!

We turned into doctors and performed word surgery! 
These particular words were having some pain, so we needed to remove part of the word and "stitch" the words back together with an apostrophe. 
We were working on CONTRACTIONS! 
To make it more fun, we wore special doctor masks. It was a lot of fun! 

Leapin' Lizards!!

As the year winds down, we are still in full learning mode! This past week we had a wonderful visit from A Reptile Show! It was great and the children learned so much! The presentation focused on the needs of these unique animals and just how difficult they are to care for. 
The man doing the presentation,(Jason) rescues various reptiles and cares for them and then finds them a new home or keeps them and takes them around to teach children about reptiles. It was excellent! 

This tortoise was rescued and brought back to health

This monitor lizard was raised from a tiny little lizard and he could get even bigger! 

This beautiful snake is almost extinct! There are very few left in the wild.

The children got to touch each one of the animals. It was interesting to listen to the children talk about how the animals skin felt, words like smooth, bumpy and cool.  

Most children were surprised that the snakes were not slimy at all! 

When pigs fly!!!

Our piggies are finished and they are up and flying around our room! We worked on painting them and adding in special details to make our pigs UNIQUE! They are so adorable! 
We began by painting them a bright pink! We hot glued a curly pink tail and then added things like ribbon rosettes, fake flowers, glitter and other details! One even had a Viking helmet made out of paper and one had a cool eye patch! He was a pirate flying pig! 

hot gluing the tails on!

3 little piggy tails!

Painting our piggies.

Add more paint!

Cover up all those white spots! 

Look how cute we are!!

Waiting on the drying trays before we take flight!

Flying pirate piggy! Notice the eye patch!

Flying around the room!