Glimmercat Education: I is for Iguana

Today, we made it to our "I is for Iguana" day. Now, since not all of us live in a place frequented by Iguanas, it might be best to start the day with a little video. I'll post my favorite Iguana YouTube video here.

SPOILERS: It's very short and has a child getting WAY to close to a random iguana that has just come swimming in out of the ocean like some sort of mythical creature. Every time I watch it, I want to grab this kid away from the lizard, while hollering something like, "It might hurt you!!! It's a wild animal!! You should never get this close to a wild animal!!!" Based on the guy's comments who is doing the taping, I am really over-reacting. But, when you watch it without sound and don't know the critter is a pet, this little video is mesmerizing.

After this exciting opening (which Little Mys insisted on watching twice), we went running (maybe, I walked) into the kitchen to do our Iguana stuff.

We began with the Dot to Dot page. Remember, I am never expecting Little Mys at this age of just turned four to do all this on her own. This is work Mommy and she complete together. So, I help her count and if she is confident, she will do it all by herself. She made it to 6 on her own, I helped a bit with 7 through 9, because they were tricky, and then, we worked together on the other numbers. But she counted with me, all the way to 25, and that is something new. And very fun.

Next, we were ready to jump into the Iguana craft. Now let me make a confession here. The glue-stick on this craft became an incredible learning experience all on its own today. Usually, I prep it for Little Mys, and twist it to make it go up and down. But today, she discovered how it worked on her own. Wow, was that fascinating! And can I just make a confession here?

*Sometimes*... the impatient and very adult part of me (that wants to get the job done) would love to just pull that learning experience out of my daughter's little hands and quickly handle it for her. It is not always easy for me to let her experience her learning on her own. But those moments when she is learning on her own are SO incredibly important!

Teaching Tip: Even if you have to sit on your hands and sing a song in your head to keep yourself from interfering, let them learn and investigate that glue-stick or whatever, on their own. It's so important.

This Iguana craft has little pieces. FYI, I cut the pieces out for Little Mys in advance on this one.

Here was the other fun thing we ran into. I had just gone over shapes with Little Mys a week or so back, and here we have this craft, where you match the iguana pieces together by shapes. I asked her, "What shape is this one, Baby?" and she'd tell me and glue them on.

The best book for a follow-up to Iguanas has got to be Verna Aardema's "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears". This African legend is a cumulative tale which begins with an Iguana who is lied to by a Mosquito. The Iguana does his best but ends up causing panic in the animal kingdom until the truth comes out. And henceforth, mosquitoes go around buzzing in people's ears because they're still trying to find out if everyone is upset with them for lying. Their answer? A hearty slap, of course, which is part of the fun of the whole story.