Floating Away

We were discussing floating and sinking in class this past week and what is one thing that most kids know that floats?.... A BOAT! So to bring the float and sink methods to life we made boats! The first step was collecting the materials.

The items that I gave them to choose from are

• Tin pie bases
• Styrofoam bowls
• Pipe Cleaners
• Construction Paper
• Seaplane sheets
• Straws
• Electrical tape
• Clear tape
• Glue
• Tissues
• Popsicle Sticks
• Cupcake liners
• Printer Paper
• Scissors

They had to choose a KEEL first, a MAST, and then a SAIL. These were also 3 words they focused on learning and knowing the meaning of. 

Some of the questions we were trying to answer were:

1. How does a heavy thing like a boat float on water?
2. Does the size of the mast and sail make a difference? Why?
3. If you want your boat to go faster, what sort of sail or other devices should your boat have?
4. Which keel worked better? Why?
5. After testing their boat, what would they change and why?
6. Which materials seemed to work better than others?

The kids really loved making their own boats and designing their own sails. They got very creative and truly thought about how they should make it so that their boat would float and float fast. 

Once they were finished we took them outside and tested them. They tried sinking them, racing them, seeing how much they could put inside until the boat wouldn't hold any longer, etc.

Afterwards, we went back into the classroom and discussed what worked and what didn't. Some students even went back and fixed things to try their boats again. 

My New Favorite Book!

This past week we learned about weather. While searching for activities and books that would be great to incorporate into the topic, I came across this gem. The book is titled, Windblown by Edouard Manceau. It is relatively new and just came out in April of 2013.

This book is easy to follow, simple enough that a young child can understand it but also can be complex enough that an older child would still like it. The activity that goes with the book is also very versatile for different ages.

First you cut out the shapes that are found in the book. So in the end the child should have 1 large blue shape, 1 red shape, 1 orange shape, 2 small black dots, and 2 dark gray circles.

After the child gets the shapes, the should also be given a glue stick, a black marker, and a white piece of paper. Now, ask them to make a picture with it.

The point of the activity is that they make a picture depicting what they see with the shapes. In the book, the shapes come together to make different animals. Some of the kids wanted to remake the ones in the book but we tried to guide them into making their own animal. We got some great pictures in the end! We had so many, I ended up making a bulletin board out of it. 

Valentine Graphing

For Valentine's Day we graphed candy hearts. The kids really seemed to enjoy this activity. I gave each child a box of hearts. These are completely random so no one had the same results on their graphs!

The first step was to dump the hearts out and organize them by colors.

After sorting, they counted each color and colored in the blocks above the colored heart. For ease of knowing which blocks to color, I taught them how to count the blocks by putting a dot in each one of the color they are to color it in with. 

This worked great and helped them see how far up they needed to color.

The kids did a great job! Even the ones who have a hard time with math skills found this activity to be fun and easy to understand. And in the end they got to take the box of hearts home to eat. So it ends with an even better reward! 

Team Painting

One of my favorite activities to do during the school year is team painting. This is an activity that builds communication, teamwork, and skills.

To do team paining, you need paint, smocks, paper, and something to paint. Every year it's something different. This year was one of our stuffed frog friends sitting in a chair with a jester's hat on. The key is to find colorful things that makes them think.

I paired the class up with partners that they don't usually work with or play with. I also put quieter ones with those who like to talk. This was done to get the quieter ones to come out of their shell a bit. 

They are instructed to pain what they see but they have to work together. They have to talk about who is painting what, what do they see as a team, and decide how they want their 1 picture to look like. In years past I have seen some amazing finished works. There is always 1 kid or 1 team who completely stun me with how great their work is and there is always 1 team who have more fun just painting all the colors together and making a mess. 

This team decided they wanted to pain the frog but give him a house too. 

This team did an awesome job! Love the detail.

In the end, most of the teams painted 2 frogs on their canvas. Some got the details, and some I'm not sure what they painted! Either way, it's a fun activity and really is neat to see how these different personalities work together as a team. My assistant suggested a great idea to add on to this. Have them do a painting at the start of school, middle of the year, and at the end. All with the same partner. In the end, we can compare how their work has changed and how they have grown as a team. I want to try this next year! 

This was my "messy" team! :-)

Trying to get those colors right.

Starting small and working out.

Frederick the Mouse

During my daughter's book fair, I found this adorable book called Frederick. It is the sweetest story about a mouse (named Frederick) who collects things such as words, colors, and stories instead of food and supplies like his den mates. During the ho-hum days of winter, it's Frederick's stories and colors that brighten their lives.

The poem at the end of the story about the 4 mice that live in the sky and provide the seasons was the best. It inspired me to use the story in my class and have the kids make a picture based around the poem.

The items needed for this project are:

- 4 oval mice shapes in grey
- A flower, snowflake, fish, and a pumpkin
- Copy of the Frederick poem
- Grey circles

I framed the poem with paper. Each student glued the mice down in a row and added each season's shape onto their backs. We added yarn for their tails and used the grey circles for their ears. We used the 1-inch circle punch for the ear shapes. It made it a lot easier.

After gluing the mice down, the students then glued the poem to the top. I drew in some lines to look like rocks in the background since the story takes place with Frederick talking to his den mates in the stones of a wall. You can change up the season's shapes to fit with whatever you have. A sun would work great for summer and even a leaf for fall.

My Name

For an early school year activity, I like to have the kids work on recognizing their names. For many, they know what their name looks like but they don't necessarily know how to spell it. This activity covers both concerns.

Items Needed:

-  Head Template 

- T-Shirt Template

- Arms and Hands

- Construction Paper

- Circles

- Markers

To make these adorable people, cut out the heads in flesh toned construction paper. One for each student. My assistant cut out hands and arms just by sketching onto the same color paper. There really is no template for those. Of course, cut 2 for each student. 

For the t-shirt, what I did was cut out the top of the t-shirt but left the length very long. After the student glued their letters on, I went back and just trimmed it to the right length. This helped with those who had really long names. When cutting out the t-shirts, cut them in different colors. It allows the kids to get to personalize it that much more. 

For the buttons, we used a 1-inch circle punch. Count how many letters your students names add up to. Then punch that many out of a contrasting paper color. 

Since this was a very early activity in the school year, my assistant and I wrote the letters on the buttons but if we were to do it for a bit older child or even later on in the school year I would let the child write the letters. 

The students lined their buttons up in the correct order then glued them onto the shirt. They used markers to add faces and scraps of paper for hair. We told them to make the faces look like theirs. A couple of the boys who have hysterical personalities asked to add a little to their faces. Hence why there is a "pirate" and a boy with a mustache. :-)

We glued the heads and arms on and they were done! I love how these came out and the kids had so much fun doing them. They really liked adding the details to make them look like themselves. 

Grassy Monsters

To add to our fun, we made grassy monsters!
The items you will need for this project is:

- Black knee high pantie hose
- Google Eyes
- Tacky Glue
- Plastic Cups
- Sequence, buttons, etc
- Top Soil
- Grass Seed

1. Using a plastic cup, place the knee high into the cup with the toe area facing the bottom.
2. Pour about 1/8th of a cup of grass seed into the toe area.
3. Pour about 1 to 2 cups of top soil in. This is determined by how large of a monster you want to make.
4. Tie very tight and clip off any excess.

5. Glue eyes and decorations onto the front to make a face.

6. When dry- place (knot side down) into a plastic cup of water and place in the window.

After a week or two, you will start to see hair!! They all grew at different rates but it was fun to see where the grass grew in accordance to the face. I had some students put eyes all over the top, so when the grass grew in it was between all the eyes.