Letter O and Number 8 Coloring Pages

So I have joined a co-op preschool in my neighborhood, in which we rotate between houses. This week was my turn to teach. I was a little worried about having six children under the age of five in my care. Plus, I was supposed to teach them something. Each of us is supposed to teach a letter, and they didn't have to necessarily be in order. I decided to start with "O." I think most of them already knew it, but I wanted to do a theme. Ready for it? I did the letter "O," which is at the beginning of the word "octopus" and "octagon." So, naturally, the number I picked was the number 8. I don't think the kids appreciated my cleverness, but they had fun coloring. You can find the pdfs for the pages in the links at the bottom of the page.

It was funny to see the different personalities. One kid kept asking to play with toys, one wouldn't sit still, another kept asking to go outside, and my own kept asking when we could have graham crackers. We also found some exciting bugs outside. There was an itty bitty spider on one of our outside toys, and one of the little girls wouldn't let anyone touch, get too close, or (heaven forbid!) squish it. I didn't get a picture of that, but I did get one of the gigantic grasshopper we found on a stump. I live in a desert area where there aren't a lot of big bugs. A spider that's an inch long qualifies as huge. But this grasshopper was a good 2 1/2 inches long. It didn't look real. I felt like I was at Disneyland watching an animatronic insect. Plus, it didn't move much, even with six little kids coming close to it. It did blink, though. 

Look at that thing. It's like a dinosaur bug. It was cool to have something like that to show my preschool kids, even if they weren't as impressed as I was.

The octopus in the coloring page is actually the same one from my octopus card from a few months ago. I loved it so much I just had to reuse it. That octopus was really my first drawing that didn't look like a child drew it, so I'm pretty proud of it.

The beautiful coloring was done by my two-year-old, who wanted to participate in "school," too.

Of the coloring pages, I think the octagon one was actually the student favorite. The kids really got into coloring all those octagons, which I thought was funny.

Not this kid. Two-year-olds are too busy to color for long, I suppose.

All in all, I think my first day of preschool was successful. :) Now I have five weeks before I teach again.

Eight Octagons Coloring Page
O is for Octopus Coloring Page