(bright acoustic guitar music) - Hello, little learners!

I was just looking at my friend, the bee, and thinking about how delicious it is to eat some honey.

That's what bees make.

We're learning all about insects, like bees, this week.

Do you remember what makes an insect and insect?

How many legs do they have to have?

Can you think and remember?

Six, that's right.

Show me with your fingers.

One, two, three, four, five, and one makes six.

They have six legs and three body parts, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.

And they have two things that stick out of their head that are sensors or feelers that let them feel the world around them.

They're called antenna, that's right.

Some have long antenna and some have short ones.

Now, are all insects small?

Kind of, right?

We saw a big beetle like this in a book that was the size of someone's hand.

They come in all shapes and sizes.

So, before we continue on learning about insects, I want us to think about all the things we've already learned.

We're like insect experts.

We should be so proud.

Okay.

I'm Mrs. Lara.

Hello.

If you're new here, I hope that you stick around.

I like to sing songs, so we're gonna start our day with a song and it's about a special insect, a little ladybug, and it has a really neat part where we get to crawl all over.

The ladybug song's tune is "Mary Had a Little Lamb," so here we go.

♪ I have a little ladybug ♪ ♪ Ladybug, ladybug ♪ ♪ I have a little ladybug ♪ ♪ Its wings are black and red ♪ Next, we're gonna see the little ladybug.

Where are you, ladybug?

There it is.

♪ See the little ladybug ♪ ♪ Ladybug, ladybug ♪ ♪ See the little ladybug ♪ ♪ It's flying here to there ♪ And then, it's gonna land.

Where should it land?

Pick a special spot.

Okay, get your hand and ladybug ready.

Mine's gonna land on the knee, on my knee here.

Ready?

♪ Now it's landing on my knee ♪ ♪ On my knee, on my knee ♪ ♪ Now it's landing on my knee ♪ ♪ And crawling everywhere ♪ Make sure it crawls in your hair, it crawls on your ears, it crawls on your mustache.

Mustache?

It crawls on your cheeks, and your nose, and your neck, and your stomach.

And let out a nice, big giggle because we're so happy to be here today.

Are you ready to get started with our book?

Remember, we have to learn some key vocabulary words before we read our book because without knowing what these words mean, it's very, very hard for us to understand the story.

So here are our three words behind this door.

(Mrs. Lara humming) The first word is lonely.

Special letter L, lonely.

Now, lonely is a feeling word.

It means you're sad because you don't have any friends or any company.

You're lonely.

You're all alone.

So there you are.

Have you ever been lonely before?

The next word is special letter F and it means flickering.

It's flickering and it means shining with a light that is sometimes bright and sometimes weak.

So sometimes it's very bright and sometimes very weak.

It doesn't shine all steadily.

Flickering.

The last word that we're gonna put inside of our memory bank so that we can understand the story is reflecting.

Special letter R for reflecting, like think about reflecting like a mirror.

You see your reflection, you see the same thing thrown back at you.

And reflecting means to throw back light or sound.

So you're throwing back light or sound.

We're gonna see these three words in our story and here our story comes.

Let me put my little bee friend down here.

Do not sting me.

Put him back here.

Here we go.

Here's our story.

It's by Eric Carle.

We know this author, right?

He did "The Grouchy Ladybug," which we read earlier this week.

The title of this book is "The Very Lonely Firefly" and this is what a firefly looks like in one of Eric Carle's books.

You'll notice here at the bottom, it has a glowy part.

And I don't wanna give too much away, but we're gonna use glow sticks in the "Project Place."

Yay!

All right.

We're gonna make our own firefly.

So here it is.

Settle in.

Maybe get a book buddy because we're gonna read our story.

As the sun set, a little firefly was born.

It stretched its wings and flew off into the darkening sky.

So there is the little firefly and it's being born and it's flying off into the dark sky.

Look it, the sun is setting.

There it goes.

What is going to happen to the little firefly?

I'm so worried because the last book we read by Eric Carle, the grouchy ladybug got slapped by the whale's tail.

I wonder if the same thing is gonna happen here.

It was a lonely firefly and it flashed its light, searching for other fireflies.

So you'll remember, lonely means it's all alone, no one around.

So it's flashing its light down here to try to search for other fireflies.

I hope you find your firefly friends!

The firefly saw a light and flew toward it, but it was not another firefly.

What was it?

Look right here.

The people are using it inside their house to light it up.

What is that?

A light bulb.

It was lighting up the night.

Now, look, they're saying, "Hear that noise?"

It's the firefly.

Didn't find a friend yet.

It was a light bulb.

Let's see.

The firefly saw a light and flew toward it, but it was not another firefly.

What was it?

Look right here.

The woman is holding something and it's on a stick and it has a light at the end.

Do you recognize that?

It's a candle.

Now, this candle is flickering in the night.

So let's see if I can make it flicker.

Going back and forth, flickering.

So you see the light, then you don't.

The woman is saying, "What's going on?"

She heard a noise.

The firefly saw a light and flew toward it, but it was not another firefly.

Look, what is the man holding now?

So we have a light bulb and a candle and now the man is holding a...flashlight.

That's right.

And it was shining in the night.

And the man is saying, "Quiet out there!"

I think they're gonna go look for something.

What could it be?

The firefly saw a light and flew toward it, but it was not another firefly.

It was a, what is this thing the boy and the girl are holding it?

Do you recognize it?

You might not see a lot of them around, but it's called a lantern.

And the lantern was glowing by the light, so of course, the little firefly's thinking, oh, that little light will be my friend, it'll be my firefly friend.

Nope.

The boy is saying, "What is it?"

"Hey, stop fighting."

Fighting?

Who is going to be fighting?

The firefly saw several lights and flew toward them, but they were not other fireflies.

There was a dog.

So let's see.

What part of the dog do you think the firefly thought was another firefly?

Do you see any white parts?

That's right.

There's the dog's eyes.

The dog's eyes are white.

There's one more thing that's white.

Yes, his teeth.

So maybe the firefly thought the dog's eyes and teeth were the firefly.

And there was a cat?

The cat is going, "Meow!

Hiss!"

There it is.

Look it, its bright eyes.

They might look like fireflies at night, right?

And an owl.

Their eyes were reflecting the lights.

Remember, reflecting means you're throwing back the light.

And look at the owl's eyes.

They almost look like two shiny flashlights.

And there's the poor firefly going, are you a firefly?

And the owl going, "Hoot, hoot!"

The firefly saw a light and flew toward it, but it was not another firefly!

It was...what is this?

All cars have 'em in the front and you might see the grown-ups turn them on at night.

It's headlights.

They were flooding the night.

So, look, they're going somewhere.

It's the dad or boy, and mom, the girl and the boy, the cat and the dog, and the owl is following behind.

Where could they be going?

The firefly saw many lights and flew toward them, but they were not other fireflies.

They were...what is this?

Fireworks!

Wow!

I can see why they thought it was noisy.

Look.

Fireworks are very noisy, aren't they?

Look how beautiful they are.

They were sparkling, and glittering, and shimmering in the night.

When it was all quiet, the firefly flew through the night, flashing its light, looking and searching again.

Oh, I hope this is not a sad story.

I really want the firefly to find a friend so it's not lonely anymore.

Then, the very lonely firefly saw what it had been looking for.

What is it?

Let's see.

A group of fireflies flashing their lights.

I don't know if you can see, but look!

Right here is that special flashing surprise I saw.

If you look really closely, you can see all the fireflies are flashing.

Now the firefly wasn't lonely anymore.

The end.

So, what do you think, what was your opinion of the story of "The Very Lonely Firefly?"

I was very nervous.

I thought (gasping) this firefly is not gonna find anyone to be friends with.

It's gonna be lonely forever.

Poor firefly.

And it got me thinking about lonely and nervous and all the feeling words that we might sometimes hear, but not understand.

So, I would love for us to take a look at some feeling cards right now and see if we can identify or show me what that feeling is.

So here are my cards and I'll try to bring 'em as close to you as I can.

So you could see, in this picture, there is a girl.

You see?

And she looks kind of sad.

Her face is making this face.

What do you think she's feeling?

Do you think she's feeling confused, maybe?

She's looking off into the distance.

I know she's not happy because she's not smiling.

Yeah, I think she's feeling confused.

Confused is a feeling when you don't know what's going on.

Your face might look like this.

That's what her face is making.

Let's look at the next one.

Is this a happy feeling?

What do you think?

That little boy looks like he's crying.

His mouth is open like he's screaming and he's shedding some tears!

Maybe somebody took his favorite toy!

How do you think he's feeling?

Yeah, I think he's pretty sad.

Maybe a little angry, too.

Can you have more than one feeling in your body?

Yes.

Sad is when you're just so disappointed in something.

Your body might feel really hot and your face might look like this.

Let's do a few more.

Do you recognize this feeling?

It's a little girl and she's showing us her teeth like this.

Can you make a face like this?

Her eyes are kind of small and she's smiling.

She looks like she's...happy.

That's right.

Happy like when I'm with you.

Okay, one more.

Look at this little boy.

He's looking into his phone, he has a little play phone here, and he looks like he's yelling into his phone.

Maybe somebody said something mean or is trying to take away his play phone, but he looks...angry.

That's right.

And what do you do when you're angry?

That's a very strong feeling, isn't it?

You might wanna stomp your feet.

Yes, that's right.

You take your belly breaths and we can take 'em together.

We can wrap our fingers around, put them on our stomach and go (exhaling).

One.

(Mrs. Lara exhaling) Two.

(Mrs. Lara exhaling) Three big belly breaths and then we name our feeling.

Say I am angry.

Okay, we can't leave on that note.

Let me see if I can pull out another feeling that's maybe not so bad.

Oh, this one.

(Mrs. Lara giggling) This one makes me smile from ear to ear.

Look at this little boy.

He's smiling wide and he's looking around.

He is...happy.

That's right, but maybe he's also excited.

And excited is how I'm feeling right now because we get to make our very own firefly and we're gonna use some glow sticks that we get to break open.

So come join me in the "Project Place" where we make our firefly together.

So here we go.

For this activity, you will need some recycled materials.

You're gonna need a water bottle that's been used, so don't throw them away because you can make a fish with these.

What else could they become?

A car, but today, it's a firefly.

Save as many as you can.

You're going to need some paper, so today, I'm using red and brown, you're going to need some tape, and a pipe cleaner if you like, or you can use paper to make the antenna, and then, really fun, you're going to need a glow stick.

Now, you can get these at the place where everything costs $1 and I actually was able to get five glow sticks for $1.

So, the very first thing we're going to do, this is what it's gonna look like.

Now I know you can't see, but once you put the glow stick in and it gets very dark, you could see our firefly glowing.

All right.

So, we're gonna take our water bottle like this and the first thing we're gonna do is make wings.

So we're gonna take our brown paper.

So here's our brown paper and we're gonna draw some wings on there.

So let's see.

I'm gonna take my marker off.

Now, to make this faster, I'm going to fold it in half.

That means I'm gonna hold it into two parts so that way I can draw my wing once and I could cut it out.

So here it goes.

I'm gonna go around.

I'm almost gonna make line a U shape.

This is what my wings are gonna look like.

Look at that.

I'm gonna grab some scissors and we could cut them out.

Look, this is what it's looking like.

Do you see how it looks like a U, or a big smile, or a nose, or a sack?

(Mrs. Lara giggling) Now you're gonna hold your paper down and cut out your wings.

Now, I love this activity because you can make more than one firefly and then it won't be so lonely, or you can be the firefly's friend.

And I love that it glows, of course.

So then you have your pair, or two wings, that you're gonna tape down right here.

Now, you can use this kind of tape that you use for gift wrapping, but I actually found this tape, which is packing tape.

And because we're kind of in a time crunch and I really want it to work, I got some of this tape.

So I'm gonna put the wings on there and there we are.

You can also glue them down.

If you have an adult that has some hot glue, hot glue works very, very well.

You just have to be careful not to melt the plastic.

So there are our wings and then we know that insects have how many legs?

Six legs.

That's right.

So I have some paper here and all I had was some white paper, so I'm gonna cut out six legs.

Ready?

One.

I'm gonna make six little lines.

Two.

Three.

How many more?

One, two, three.

Let's see.

I need three more.

Four.

Five.

And six.

Then I'm gonna cut across like this, and voila, I have six legs.

Now, I like that these are white, but since I have my black marker, I can take it and kind of color them in black.

And can you do that if you only have white paper?

You can just color things in with some crayons or some markers.

Use what you have.

I have a teacher who told their parents I love that you do at home activities, but you're not allowed to buy anything for them.

Hello, Miss Ventura if you're watching.

I thought that was a great idea.

It forces creativity.

So I'm just coloring them in slowly.

There we are.

Five and six.

(Mrs. Lara giggling) There we go.

There are our legs.

Get it all covered right there.

And next, you're gonna take your tape, I might use this smaller tape for this, and you're gonna tape them on.

Now, what I like to do is just kind of bend them like this so that they stick out a little bit.

So you can see, it's like a backwards L shaped.

So there goes one.

There it is.

And we'll do two.

Take your tape, bend it, put it on.

There's three.

One more.

And then, I'm gonna put three on one side and then three on the other side and we'll continue.

Then we're gonna do three.

So it's almost symmetrical.

Remember we used that word?

We learned that word yesterday and it means the same on both sides.

There's one, two, and last one to make three.

Here we go.

One more.

I don't wanna miss a leg.

What would you do if you had six legs?

Do you think you would be the fastest runner ever or do you think your legs would get in the way?

(Mrs. Lara chuckling) So here we go.

This is what it's looking like.

Next, I'm gonna take some red paper and I'm actually gonna make a little red strip to go around its body.

So you can see, I'm gonna cut it straight down like this.

And then like this and I'm just gonna tape it down right here.

I might use the smaller tape to do that.

Here we go.

One.

And two.

This is just to give it a little bit of color.

Otherwise, you just see brown and red.

What's missing?

What do insects use to see?

Their eyes!

Of course!

I'm gonna draw some eyes right here on my white paper.

Turn it over.

Two circles or two ovals.

Did you know that fireflies have really, really large eyes?

I was surprised to see how big they were.

So here I am just drawing two black circles for the eyes and I'm gonna cut them out.

Now, cutting out circles is kind of hard because they have a lot of curves.

So I'm gonna hold my paper and cut around.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

And if I'm going too fast for you, you know, you can always pause it and re-watch it or just get inspired by the idea and then make your own insect.

You can turn your water bottle into any kind of insect that you like.

Okay, here are my two eyes and I'm just gonna use some tape and put them down.

Almost there!

We're gonna get to the glow stick part.

Yay!

Put the two eyes on.

There's one and there's two.

Last thing we need are some antenna, so let's do that really quickly.

One and two.

Here's my antenna.

I'm gonna cut it just a little shorter.

I'm gonna fold it so it looks like a V and then kind of curl it at the ends like this.

Antenna.

Use that same tape, or glue, or whatever it is you're using and kind of put them down like this.

Here's what my firefly is looking like.

Okay, favorite part.

Glow stick time.

So here's what my glow stick is looking like.

Now, because the studio lights are so bright, you're not gonna be able to see it glow, but trust me, it's there.

Directions say that you have to bend it.

And then shake it.

And then put it inside your firefly like that.

And then when it's nighttime and you're in your room, you can see it glowing.

And I don't have the cap for this one, but if you put the cap on like I did here, you can fly it around and look for other things that glow around your room.

So I hope that you try this activity that goes along with our book for the day, which was "The Very Lonely Firefly."

Don't forget to come back tomorrow where we're gonna learn about more insects.

And I have a fun "Play-Doh" activity where we're gonna create our own insect together.

So until then, a big squeeze and a big smooch from me to you.

We'll see you then.

Goodbye.

(bright acoustic guitar music)