Welcome to our First Edition of our Twiggle Magazine!
Each month we will be featuring some fun activities, crafts, games, and healthy recipes to support your children's development.
Bats are familiar figures when the leaves start to turn and Halloween is just around the corner. Bats often get a bad rap. Did you know that bats are quite beneficial to us? They eat harmful bugs like grasshoppers and mosquitoes, which can destroy crops and spread diseases. They help spread fruit seeds and pollinate flowers. Just in time for the Halloween season your child will be batty for bats with our “spooktacular” bat-related activities. Children will enjoy learning about bats through listening to stories, making fun crafts, playing games, and reciting poems and singing songs.
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Healthy Facts and Tips
Sleep and Rest
Discuss how bats sleep during the day and are active during the night. Take this opportunity to talk with your children about why it is important for everybody to rest and sleep. Ask children if they know why we need our rest and sleep.
Facts: We all need sleep. Sleep allows the body to rest and restore itself after a busy day. Young children need more sleep because...
All Bats Do Not Look Alike
What you need:
What you do:
All Bats Do Not Look Alike
Show children pictures of different species of bats. Point out to children how bats differ. The following are some of the ways that you can tell bats apart: some are big, some are small; some have tails, some do not; and some have odd faces, some have odd noses or ears. Compare various bat pictures with one another. Ask children to point out the differences—as many as they can find.
Literacy Activity: Stellaluna
What you need:
- Book: by Janell Cannon
What you do:
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon is a charming story about a fruit bat whose world is turned upside down. After reading the story to your child, discuss with your child how birds and bats are different and what it means to be a friend.
Stellaluna provides a great springboard for a discussion about what it means to be different and alike. First, brainstorm with children how they are alike and different. Then, pair up children and have pairs discuss the ways that they are alike and different. Have pairs share with the group their findings. As children share, create a mini-chart of each pair’s traits and how they are alike and different. During the next few days, meet with each pair and using the mini-chart, help them write a few words or sentences about their similarities and differences. Have children make illustrations. Combine the pages to make a class book.
_At Word Family Activities
What you do:
Introduce the following rhyme to children:
A little black cat
Who was wearing a hat
Sat on a mat.
Along came a black bat
Who chased the little black cat
Who was wearing a hat
Off the mat.
Encourage children to point out the words that rhyme.
Bat Hunt Game
What you do:
Hide some toy bats or construction paper bats around the house or outside before children arrive. Give each child a paper bag and a flashlight and turn off the lights. Have children search for the hidden bats. The child who finds the most bats is the winner. Give a small prize to the winner if desired. (Variation: You could have one special bat for guests to find, and the person who finds that bat gets a prize too.)
View more Bat Halloween Party ideas
Movement Activities
Bats Are Sleeping
Have children pretend to be bats sleeping while singing the song. At the end of the song the "bats" wake up and fly around until you start the song again.
KidsSoup Resource Library
NEW This Month:
Bat Preschool and Kindergarten
Crafts and Activities
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