Bats

I was visiting a wonderful blog, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, and I was inspired by some bat art she did with her class. I immediately knew I wanted to try something similar with mine. I found a big bat sponge among our art supplies at my center.

Because I only had one, only one child at a time could do the art project. But that's okay. I had plenty of other activities out to keep the kids busy. The bat sponge was placed on a black piece of construction paper. I put some white tempera paint in a spray bottle and added water. The kids sprayed the paint onto their paper, covering the bat as well.

It was a very thick sponge, so we made sure to spray from all sides. Then I took the sponge off and the kids used a Q-tip to paint eyes on the bat.

We used glow-in-the-dark paint.

These turned out SO COOL! I love them! The white dried to almost a light gray, but that's OK. It was like a bat swooping through the air on a foggy night!

And check out this 4-eyed bat:

When they were dry, we went into the bathroom, "charged" our bats, turned the lights off and saw them glow! It was fun!

Flying Bats

Today's nocturnal animal was the bat. We learned all about these amazing mammals. The art project was very simple. I found a bat shape I liked and traced it onto white paper. Then each child colored both sides of the bat.

Then I folded the bat in half, right down the middle of the face and body. And then I folded each wing back. The kids could hold onto the body part, move their arms up and down, and the bats would flap their wings!

On an unrelated side note, if you read this post about our caterpillars, I have an update for you! All five butterflies hatched over the weekend! Luckily, we put sugar water and orange slices in the garden before we left on Friday. We didn't want them to go hungry if they came out when we weren't there! We kept them in the classroom for two days, and then released them on the playground. Two flew out on their own, the other three needed a little help from me. We also released our ladybugs. According to the facts that came with the kit, the butterflies are known to stay in the area in which they are released, so we might see them around our center this week!

Fun Fact: Bats, the only flying mammal, are not blind. They can see, but vision is not their primary sense.