These Newts were made for walkin'!

With four legs and many toes THESE newts are made for walkin', and climbing and scurrying along ponds, trees and ground.  This week began our study on the letter "N" and Newts!  The children have been very intersted to learn about these little known amphibians.  They have called them lizards, monsters and iguanas.  We have learned that they lay their eggs in ponds, hatch and breath with gills  and swim.  As they get older they grow lungs and breathe just like you and me!  They can be red, orange, green and brown.  Newts love to eat all kinds of insects, worms, snails and small fish. 
The above picture shows an activity we completed yesterday.  We cut the newts out following the gray lines.  I cut out the newts for the younger children and our older children followed the lines themselves.  We then placed the newts into a letter "N" formation to fit into our letter "N" paper.

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We viewed this short on youtube that talks about the letter "N" is for newt and nest. 

We also made up a little song about newts...These Newts Were Made For Walkin'!  Yes...it is sung to the song your thinking of "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'!" by Nancy Sinatra.  It's just the chorus...but I did include the link to it simply because I LOVE it!  It's such a fun song...however I didn't show this one to the preschoolers :)  this one is just for you mommas and daddies!  Here are the words to our song...

These Newts Were Made For Walkin'!

These newts were made for walkin'
And that's just what they'll do!
And one of these days these newts
are gonna climb a tree with you!

(we practiced walking like a newt, one all fours, and climbing a tree like a newt!)

We took all our amphibians out to the water table and  we discussed what an amphibian is and that they begin living their baby lives in water only and then, as they grow up, they can still swim, but they have to come up for a breath just like we do when we swim in the water.

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In our welcome center we placed our salamander poster and noticed that only one of the salamander's listed is a newt. We looked at all the different colors, patterns and sizes. We also discussed that they all had lots that were the same. They all had four legs, talls and shiny skin.

This water play session became VERY messy as we recreated the newt's habitat by adding lots of sand to the bottom of the water table.  We squeezed and squished in the sand and talked about the fact that the newt must have very strong legs to be able to walk on sand!

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We also pretended that our blue playdough was the newt's water (pond) and our green playdough was the dry land. Mr. Newty stomped and squished in the playdough as we played!

After we painted these little newts, we cut them out and taped them to the back glass door.  At first, we taped them into the shape of a letter "N." After they had been played with a bit and retaped we noticed that when you looked through the door it looked like they were climbing a tree!

And this picture is here simply because I love it. It's pretty much sums us up...a sweet little mess of shoes at the back door just waiting to PLAY!