Tuesday Teachings - I've Been Slimed!

Who you gonna' call? Ghostbusters! I found myself humming this song the whole time we did this experiment. Please tell me that you remember that movie!

For a little Science on a Tuesday Teaching, we decided to make some slime. Since I had that theme song running through my mind, I we decided to make our slime green. I we wanted it to look just like the slime that was put on Bill Murray's character, Venkman.

Supplies:
1 tsp Borax
1 cup warm water
4 oz Elmer's White School Glue
1/2 cup water
Food Coloring (we used neon green gel)

Put one cup of warm water in a bowl, add the Borax and stir until dissolved. Set this aside.

Pour the glue into a bowl. Add the 1/2 cup water and stir.

Add the food coloring and mix until you get the desired color.

Once that is mixed well, pour in the Borax/water mix. It will start to set up immediately. Use a spoon to stir it around and then get your hands in there.

At first it will be very wet and slimy but as you mix with your hands, it will dry out some and become more of a solid.

We loved playing with this and did numerous activities with it. The slime will take on any shape, so we used our sand molds, bowls and other things to put the slime into. Next, we would dump it out on the table and see how long it would take to flatten back out.

We also wanted to see how far across the table we could stretch it, without the slime ripping.

Have fun. We loved ours and have made numerous batches since then.

Tuesday Teachings - Play With Your Food

I know what you are thinking. We want kids to eat healthy, not to play with their food. Here my thoughts though, get the kids involved in preparing a meal and let them use math skills to help.

I was recently signed up to make a meal for a group of 3 - 5 year olds.Since it was so close to Spring, that is the subject I chose. I could have just made a casserole and hoped the kids ate it, but I like for food to be fun and tasty. I decided to let my son help me with the meal. First, we counted up how many of our friends we were expecting for the meal, then we went to the grocery.

We decided to serve, bananas, apples, cheese, ham, turkey and a dessert. I told my son that we were serving 10 kids and he had to help me get enough food for all of the children.

When we got home, we cut the ham and turkey slices with bunny cookie cutters. We allowed enough of each meat for every child to have three slices. My son helped me to count out the 30 ham bunnies and the 30 turkey bunnies. Next we moved on to the cheese. We were serving our cheese in the form of circles to represent coconuts and we needed at least three slices per child. Again, he helped me count out 30 slices.

Next, we moved on to the dessert. We decided to make birds in a nest. We counted out three square pretzels per dessert and laid them out in piles on a piece of waxed paper. Next, we melted chocolate and drizzled that over the pretzel "nests" and followed it up with rainbow sprinkles. Once the chocolate had hardened, we came back and melted some more chocolate and dipped bird shaped peeps into the melted chocolate and sat one on top of each pretzel nest. We allowed that to set and then we put each bird in a nest inside of a a cupcake liner to serve.

When it was time to serve up the meal, we cut up one banana per child and laid them out on the plate. We then added three apple slices at the top of each banana slice. These were our palm trees. We then added three cheese coconuts to the top of each palm tree. Next came the bunnies, we laid three ham and three turkey bunnies on each plate. The kids all loved this treat, but the favorite was by far the birds in a nest dessert.

Math is not my son's favorite subject, but he had lots of fun counting out all of our treats for our friends and he was eager to make sure we had enough for everyone.

Get your kids in the kitchen and open up a new perspective on math!

Tuesday Teachings - Being Thankful

As Thanksgiving approaches, we naturally turn to images of Pilgrims and Native Americans. As adults, we usually know the true meaning of Thanksgiving, but children can receive mixed messages. If they only see turkeys for the holiday, how do they know what it means to be thankful?

There are several ways to accomplish the lesson on being thankful, but I would like to high light a few.

This is a "Thankful Tree" from Family Fun Magazine. I like this, as the leaves are different colors and very fall centered. I would recommend leaving the leaves out each day though and allowing people to fill them out numerous times. Once you have a few filled out, take time to read them aloud as a family. As you read them aloud, discuss ways to be thankful and to spread the joy on to others. If a child is thankful for a special toy, maybe they would like to make a donation to a toy drive. If they are thankful for a pet, maybe they would like to volunteer at the animal shelter or drop off donations to the shelter.

Consider a family service project for the holidays, but be sure to remind your kids that they should be thankful and ready to assist someone at all times, not just the holidays.

If you are outside raking your leaves, maybe you could also rake for a neighbor that just had a baby or maybe has been sick. Teach your children to treat others as they would like to be treated. Once you have finished, leave a little note with your kid's hand prints and names and write something cute on it like "These Hands were Happy to Help".

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Counting

We have been trying to work on our counting skills lately and there is no better time than Fall! There is a vast selection of items to count and make patterns with.

We started with a package of Halloween rings that I purchased for $1.00. Our rings included spiders, bugs, skulls and bats. We worked on several things with these rings: Counting all of the rings, sorting the rings by colors, sorting the rings by shapes and then patterning. For the patterns, I would either use colors to show the pattern or I would draw the shape. My son would then have to figure out which rings matched my drawn patterns and put them all in order.

The next thing we worked on counting was acorns. There is a huge abundance of acorns available right now, so we might as well put them to use. We counted acorns, we poured acorns from one container to another and we used a spoon to scoop acorns from one container to another.

The last thing we counted was leaves. We went outside and collected a variety of leaves from trees, shrubs and plants. Once we were back inside, we counted all of the leaves and then we sorted them by size from smallest to largest. Next, we sorted them by colors and worked on our patterns.

It can be inexpensive and fun to work on counting when you just take the time to look around you and see the abundance of items available. Go on a nature hike and then go home and count your bounty!

Tuesday Teachings - Candy Corn Learning

I love Fall and especially Halloween! It is my favorite time of the year as the colors are beautiful and there are lots of opportunities for learning.

I put together a little Candy Corn math puzzle for us to use this week. It was easy to make. I just drew a pattern on a piece of card stock. It was just a triangle with rounded edges, anyone can draw that. Next I cut my pattern into three sections.

The bottom section was traced onto Orange paper and cut out. The middle section was traced onto yellow paper and the top section was traced onto white paper. Once these were all cut out, I decided to use mine for number skills. I wrote the number word on the orange sections, the number on the yellow sections and then drew number dots on the white sections.

Next I set these out for my son to put together the puzzles. My son is only 4, so I only put out 5 full candy corn pieces at a time. Keep in mind that each puzzle is three pieces so it may be intimidating to a child to see lots of pieces on the table.

There are several other examples online of people making candy corn puzzles for education. Here are just a few:

Mrs. Freshwater's Class (free printable, letter recognition)

Mrs. Schmelzer's 1st Grade (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words)

Have fun learning with your Candy Corn activities!

Tuesday Teachings - Name Rockets

We did a great activity this week to clarify the letters in our name and also the difference between upper and lowercase letters.

My son's name has 5 letters in it so I cut 10 small squares of construction paper. One square for each upper and lowercase letter of his name. I used two colors so that we could also get in a little pattern sequence. If he got stuck picking a letter, I asked him which color came next in the pattern.

In addition to the squares, I cut out two triangles to be the top of our rocket ships. The letters were written in the squares and then I sorted the squares by color. He did a great job and we currently have it framed and hanging on his bedroom door.

Since we wanted to hang this up, once he had shown me how to spell his name on both the uppercase rocket and the lowercase rocket, we glued down all of the pieces.

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Education

I am posting links to some great educational printables that you can use with your kids. These bloggers have graciously given of their time and talents to create some great activities.

First up is, Oopsey Daisy with a great L is for Leaf download. There are a massive amount of ideas and activities in this packet.

2 Teaching Mommies is a great resource. This is a direct link to their Pumpkin unit. I love the pumpkin life cycle and the fact that it ends with pie!

Counting Coconuts has this great sensory box for Fall. I love scarecrows, they just make me smile.

Have fun this Fall!

Tuesday Teachings - Voyage in to Space

This past Friday we celebrated Neil Armstrong's birthday and my son had so much fun that we decided to learn some more about space.

We made a constellation book to start. I let him make the constellation in any shape that he wanted and then we connected the dots. For this project you will need black construction paper, star stickers and white crayon.

Fold the paper in half, fourths and eighths and cut apart the pieces. Now let them put on the stickers in any design they want.

We also spent that evening outside looking at stars. When we came inside, we talked about the Big Dipper, Little Dipper and the North Star. I forgot to take pictures, be we arranged glow in the dark stars on his walls in the patterns.

Next we worked on the planets in our solar system. We started by doing a couple pages of water color paintings in a variety of colors. Once they had dried, we drew 8 lines with chalk on a piece of black construction paper. We reviewed the planets and the order in which the were from the sun. We talked about how big and hot the sun is and that the planets in order are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. I let me son pick out the colors of each planet and I cut out the shapes from our watercolor paintings. We then glued each planet on a chalk line on our paper. It made me sad to not include Pluto as a planet but no need to confuse him.

The last project that we did was discuss the phases of the moon. We used Oreo cookies as the moon and layed them out on a paper plate. A regular cookie went on the top as the New Moon. Two cookies were pulled apart and half of the cream filling removed from each one. These were each put on teh sides to signify the first quarter moon and the last quarter moon. The full moon was represented by a cookie split in half and the cream filling left intact.

Have fun and get out and explore! Since we had so much fun with this activity, it may continue into another week.

Tuesday Teaching - Letter Search

It is important to review letters with young children on a daily basis to keep them fresh. As school is getting closer it is time to really step up those efforts. I have created a letter search for you to use.

This covers the letters A, B, C, D and E in both upper and lower case. We use this sheet with a dot marker. I ask my son to find all of the letter As on the page. He marks the upper case A with one color and the lower case a with another color. This verifies to me that he knows the letters, and he knows the upper and lowercase versions. Once that is complete, we move on to the letter B, then C, D, and E.

Feel free to download your copy.


I will work on getting all of the other letters completed also and may move on to the numbers.

In addition to doing this worksheet, take every opportunity to have your child point out letters to you. We point out letters on street signs, on vehicles, on mailboxes and everywhere else we can find them.

Tuesday Teachings - Five Green and Speckled Frogs

I was recently pondering what we should work on next and was playing around online looking for some inspiration. I came across the website, Picklebums and became very excited when I saw her adorable Five Green Frogs printable. The frogs are so cute and since my son loves frogs, I thought this would be perfect.

I printed out the page and wondered what I should do with it. I decided to make a Five Green and Speckled Frogs toy.

Supplies:
Five Green Frogs printable from Picklebums
Sticky backed craft foam (I used white)
Empty paper towel tube
Brown construction paper
5 Craft sticks
7 clothespins
glue (stick and school)
Scissors

 I attached the frogs to sticky backed craft foam and then cut them all out. I then used the white glue to glue a craft stick to the back of each frog. I clipped a clothespin onto each frog to hold the stick until it dried.

Wrap the construction paper around the empty paper towel tube, using the glue stick at several intervals to adhere it on. Use the two remaining clothespins to slip one on each end of the paper towel tube until the glue dries.

Once the paper towel log has dried, use your scissors to cut five slits along the top for the craft sticks to fit into.

Once I got to this step I realized that the weight of the frogs on the log would roll the paper towel tube over so I cut a couple of tabs out of cardboard. The cardboard is actually a snack box from my recycling bin, I cut a couple of pieces about 1 inch wide by 2 inches long and folded them in half. I then glued them onto the log where the construction paper ended. Let this dry and then you are ready to proceed.

We used this to go over the Five Green and Speckled Frog poem that is on the bottom of the printout. We also worked on adding and subtracting and making up new stories with the frogs. All in all, it was a huge hit!

Tuesday Teachings - Worms, Worms, Worms

This past Friday (July 15th) was Gummy Worm Day! My son's teacher was so kind and invited me into the classroom to do a special segment on worms/gummy worms. I had so much fun and I think the kids enjoyed it too. I am sorry I do not have action pictures of the kids participating in the activities but I did not want to put a bunch of kid's pictures on here with out parent approval first.

First, I purchased 2 inch petri dishes for the whole class. Once I received them, I washed and sanitized them well to make them food ready. I then laid a small gummy worm in each dish and made blueberry gelatin to surround them. Each child then had a gummy worm snack to eat. They really enjoyed this, as how often does anyone eat anything out of a petri dish?

Next we played a game of "Pick Up Worms". I cut up several pipe cleaners/chenille stems into a variety of sizes and we used tweezers or ice tongs to pick them up. This was much like the game my son and I played picking up snakes, I just renamed it. To make it a bit more of a challenge, I put the "worms" in a container filled partway with colored rice.

We also played a rousing game of "Worm in the Apple". All of the kids stood in a line with their legs spread. They were the apples. The child at the end of the line was the worm and had to crawl and wiggle through every one's legs. When he reached the front, he also became an apple and the new last person was the worm until everyone had a chance to be the worm.

I also made up a little sheet for everyone to measure their worm. For this, they used a gummy worm. I taped a seamstress' measuring tape down to the table and we measured each worm a couple of ways. First we just laid the worm down and measured it. Next, we stretched it out as far as we could without breaking it and measured it. This turned into a discussion of elasticity and how even though we stretched the worms, they went right back to their original shape. In addition to measuring the worms in inches, we also had a pre-made measuring stick of "unifix cubes". The kids wrote each measurement on their sheet and at the bottom of the sheet was a box to draw a picture of their worms.

The last activity was probably one of the favorites. I actually bought a container of night crawlers. I put a few in larger petri dishes and gave the children magnifying glasses to investigate them. We wrote down all of the words that they used to explain and describe the worms. In the beginning several kids were hesitant to touch the worms but by the end everyone was letting worms hag out in their hands. At the end of the experiment, we went outside and released the night crawlers into the garden that they have. The classroom is growing tomatoes and marigolds. We explained how the night crawlers would crawl around in the soil and make it loose and easy for the roots of the plants to go down deep and allow the plants to grow happy.

Tuesday Teachings - Sensory Bins

If you have spent any time looking online at parent or teacher blogs then you know that themed sensory bins are a huge phenomenon! I love them and would love to personally play in several of them. There are some amazing and creative people out there that are designing these sensory bins.

Sensory bins are great for extending a theme in your classroom or home. There are three types of learners:
Auditory - meaning that you learn through listening. Verbal lectures, discussions and listening to what others have to say are the most beneficial for this type of learner. Auditory listeners are great at picking up the meaning of the speaker through listening to the tone and pitch of the lecture.
Visual - meaning that they need to see something to learn it. Visual learners not only need videos, flip charts, illustrations and diagrams but they also learn through the body and facial expressions of the speaker.
Kinesthetic - meaning they need a more hands on approach for learning. These learners typically have a hard time sitting still for long periods listening to lectures. They need to see, feel, and touch items to process. They need to move around to learn.

All learning styles can benefit from sensory bins but a Kinesthetic learner will really prosper with a sensory bin.

I have scoured the web looking for some of my favorite summer themed sensory bins and have included links below.

First, I have to include Counting Coconuts Blog. She has some amazing bins and does one each month for her son.

Weather Bin

Ice Cream Bin

Beach Sensory Bin

Garden Sensory Bin

Some other sources for Sensory Bins:



Ocean Sensory Bin from The Picky Apple

Camping Sensory Bin from Jada Roo Can Do

Pond Sensory Bin from Jada Roo Can Do

Lagoon Sensory Bin from Lightning Bug Lit

As you can see, there are some very creative bins out there. I will give you a few pointers though:

1) Make sure everything is age appropriate. If your child stills put everything in her mouth, be vigilant about the items you put in the bin.

2) Put cups, spoons, scoops or other items in the bins to let your child practice those skills.

3) Be prepared. Yes, it can get messy but we put down a cheap vinyl tablecloth and put the bin on top of that.

4) If you are afraid of huge messes, use some of the bins strictly outdoors.

5) It does not have to be expensive. Buy bins at the dollar store and supplies at the dollar store, goodwill, thrift stores or dollar spot at Target.

Read this article from Counting Coconuts about her FAQ on sensory bins. Have more questions? Post them below and we will answer them as soon as possible.

Tuesday Teachings - Scissor Proficiency

It is hard to decide when a child is ready to use a pair of scissors as children all develop at a different rate. Watch your child closely and if they seem interested, you can try using safety scissors with them. If your child is not ready, here are some great suggestions to get them ready.

First, there are some things your child should master prior to trying out a pair of scissors. The first skill to learn is "Ripping". I know it puts fear in your heart for your small child to rip up every paper in sight but it is a necessary skill. When the child is very young, use thin, easy to rip items like tissue paper. Show the child how to rip the paper by putting their hands on the top of the page and then your hands over theirs. Now rip the paper together. Soon they will catch on do it alone. This is the beginning stage of working on a tripod grasp and will also strengthen the forearms for later writing and cutting skills. As they get stronger and the tripod grip improves, move on to sturdier items. Some of the things that we kept in our rip basket were magazine inserts, construction paper, index paper and old holiday or greeting cards. I do recommend you keep all of these items in a central location as you do not want the child to think it is okay to rip up all the papers that they see. They need to know that only these papers that you have picked out can be ripped.

Secondly, you will move on to the "Snip" phase. A snip involves using scissors but it requires only one snip to complete the cut. We started our cutting cheap straws that I found at a Dollar Store. If you use straws, be forewarned that the pieces will fly all over the place. For my son, that was part of the intrigue.

When we started snipping, I purchased special scissors for him. The scissors we used did not have spaces for your fingers and thump, instead you put your thumb on top and the other fingers below and just squeeze. These were a huge asset to my son as his muscles were weaker than other kids his age. If you are interested in these scissors they are made by Faber Castell and are available on their Creativity for Kids website. I love these scissors as they are spring motioned and can be used with a left or right hand. If you do not want to use the straws to snip with, try play doh, sandpaper, cooked pasta or herbs. Steer clear of paper for now to give them confidence and excitement.

Lastly, you can move on to cutting with multiple movements. It is best to practice on heavier paper like construction paper or card stock. The paper will be easier for the child to handle thus increasing their confidence. You can find lots of cutting pages on line but until the child is confident, do not give them these pages to work on. Just let them cut the paper any way they please. Once they seemed to have some skill at cutting in multiple movements, draw some dark lines on the papers and ask them to cut on the lines. At first you will start out with straight lines, then lines with one angle, then lines with two angles, etc. Do not get too excited to progress though, be sure the child has the confidence needed to move on to the next step.

Cutting on curves is the last skill they will master. This is the most difficult one. The easiest way to begin learning this is to use items that are already round, like a paper plate and allow the child to cut around the edges.

All during her primary school years she will be working to improve and master her skills. Cutting is not a skill that is mastered overnight. Be patient and understanding with your child to keep them from getting frustrated and giving up.

Tuesday Teachings - Scavenger Hunts

As the weather warms and the family spends more time outside it is a great time to explore your surroundings. A great way to do this is to go on scavenger hunts with the entire family. This is an easily adaptable process by customizing your sheets. I am going to attach a few sheet for you to print with typical nature items found in most areas but you could also do a sheet using clip art available in any program.


We love to go on scavenger hunts at different times of the day. We then keep track of which items/creatures we were more likely to find in the morning, afternoon or evening. This is a fun and easy way to begin teaching graphing skills to your child.


There are 4 lists that we put together for scavenger hunts. You can use one for each child or everyone can use the same list. You will notice that each list does have one item that is exactly the same. We have encouraged each child to find one piece of trash to recycle. This will be a great opportunity to encourage your kids to be great stewards of the Earth.

Tuesday Teachings - Life Cycles

We recently ordered the best books about Life Cycles. They are by David M Schwartz and one of my favorite things about them is that they contain real photos of the animals and plants instead of illustrations. The photographer for the books is Dwight Kuhn. Below is a picture of the Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle book and the link to purchase.

They have a large variety of books including: Bean, Wood Frog, Horse, Ladybug, Sunflower, Fighting Fish, Chicken, Hummingbird, Maple Tree and Jumping Spider.

Prior to receiving these books my child had zero interest in life cycle activities. I had tried numerous times to get him interested but to no avail. Once we got the books everything changed. In the last week I have read each of these books to him numerous times, I can almost recite these books!

I immediately thought back to an activity that I saw online a month or so ago on The Crafty Classroom. I marked it in my "Inspiration" folder and I am now inspired. I made Life Cycle stamps for my son to play with. It was easy and he loves them.

Supplies:
Craft Foam
Pencil
Wood Block
Glue
Scissors
Stamp Pads

I used an old book that we got at a yard sale last year for my inspiration photos and then I sketched the designs lightly on the craft foam. Once I was happy with the design, I went back over the pictures pressing hard to make the design stay indented enough to use as a stamp.

Once the pictures are completed, cut them out leaving a small border around the pictures and glue them on to left over wood blocks. We used alphabet blocks that we had duplicates of, you could also use just one block and put one picture on each of four sides. Once the glue is dry, start stamping!

I am also planning on going back and making life cycle stamps for other animals and plants. Next up will be the frog.

Tuesday Teachings - Summer Learning

Picture Source

Most schools are out or getting ready to let out here in the United States and kids can not wait for summer vacation. As a child, I remember the excitement and thrill I felt when it was time to finally put away the textbooks and pencils; it was time to run, play and be free! Kids need that time to just be kids but summer vacation is also no time to just forget everything they learned in the past school year.

You can give your child numerous opportunities to continue learning over summer vacation without them even realizing it.

Cook together - Let your child pick out a new recipe to try and then take them to the store to purchase all of the ingredients. This gives them opportunities to work on reading (recipes and food labels), writing (grocery list), math (measuring ingredients and timing meal) and is a great activity to do together. Research shows that when kids are involved in selecting and preparing food they take ownership of the meal and are more likely to not only try the food but to also enjoy the food.

Garden together - Go to a local garden center and give your child a set amount of money. They can then select several plants to grow in your yard or in pots. This works on math skills (spending money and spacing plants), nurturing skills (caring for the plants)and then recipes and cooking skills.

Scavenger Hunts - See our blog post of 6/4/10 for a great scavenger hunt in the grocery store and we are hoping to give another scavenger hunt sheet for the great outdoors in the next week or so. This is a great skill for kids to teach them to focus, pay attention, search and read.

Photo Source

Public Libraries - Our local library kicks off their summer reading program on 6/1/11. The theme this summer is One World, Many Stories. We have participated in the summer reading program every year. It is cheap, challenging entertainment that encourages literacy making it a win-win for everyone!

Art Camp - No need to pay expensive camp fees. Get together with some of your friends and organize a camp for the kids. Each day the kids can rotate the house they go to and each parent would be responsible for one day of camp. If you need some great art ideas check out Pink and Green Mama's blog for some great ideas and e-books on outdoor arts.

Make homemade art supplies - see our blog posts for Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments, play dough, Chalk Paint, and Surprise Soap.

In addition the the activities listed above, also remember that "Playing is Learning"! Have a great summer!