Looking for the alphabet

This idea I found on Pintrest (check out my "I tried it and they loved it!" board).

What you'll need:

• Clear water bottle, label removed, and dry on the inside
• Small, colorful alphabet beads - I luckily found some at a dollar store but Lakeshore Learning also has some http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca|searchResults~~p|2534374302174932~~.jsp
• Rice
• Funnel
• Laminated card with the alphabet printed on it, or any wipe off alphabet sheet
• Dry erase marker and eraser

Use the funnel to put about 1/4 of the rice into to the bottle then drop in some alphabet beads. Repeat until all the alphabet beads are in the bottle and submerged by the rice. Put the cap on tightly (use glue if you think necessary). Shake the bottle to see if the alphabet letters are distributed evenly throughout the bottle. One time I chose to dump some of the rice+letters out and put them back in with the funnel to better space them out.

Kids rotate the bottle the bottle and circle the letters on the sheet that they find in the bottle.

To be honest...I was surprised that they really took to it! Sometimes *I* think I have a great idea and *THEY* don't take to it - this time it was the other way around!

What are stations? Stations are activities that I've found/created for kids to use independently while I'm working with another set of students. The topics of the stations generally build on a topic that we've already learned about in class so there isn't a lot of new teaching that needs to be done

Worms in the classroom

Just about every kid loves them but I personally can only tolerate them. This doesn't mean that we can't learn about them. I recently put together a quick worm unit and here's what I did:

First I had to do some research because I didn't know much about worms and neither did my kids. They knew they were wiggly and lived in the dirt but they didn't know about their brains and hearts =P I did a simple internet search and gathered information from various websites

Then we made some worm art. First I colored spaghetti pasta by putting food coloring in water in a pot, boiling the water, and then adding the pasta. You'll want to use PLENTY of food coloring (I used 30 drops) so the noodles come out vibrant. Dip a piece of paper towel in the water and then squeeze the water out to see the color that your noodles will be. I made green and blue because I seemed to have a lot of extra blue and green food coloring. You can use whatever colors you would like.

I colored the noodles the night before and kept them in a container in the fridge and they were ready to use the next day.

I gave the kids small plates with glue on it and they dragged the colored noodles through the glue and then put them on brown pieces of construction paper. They thought this was a fun use of glue!

Then we let them dry over night. When I came to school the next day the brown paper curled A LOT and when I tried to straighten it the pasta broke =( so I'd suggest you make this on pieces of cardboard or remember to put weights on the papers to keep them straight as they dry.

Another wormy idea is to read the book Diary of a Worm and then watch the video!

Another day we went on a worm hunt in our playground. Each kid got a shovel and their instructions were to find the worm but NOT to take it out of the dirt but observe it in it's own habitat (this also might save the worm's life!) It was neat to hear exclamations of "I see him helping the dirt!" and "I see his hearts!"

 My last idea was to let the kids make their own worms out of play dough. Play dough it always a hit!

I'm looking forward to adding to my worm unit as years pass. If *YOU* have any great wormy ideas I'd love to hear them!

Old technology

My local college's facebook page just reminded me of this great use of an overhead projector. Allow kids the chance to manipulate the items to see what images project on the wall!

Don't be quick to throw away those old machines =P

Chefs in the classroom

One of my FAVORITE units is our Cooking unit. Here is what we do:

First we make chef hats. Use a plastic grocery bag, cut off the handles and cut off the corners of the bag to give it a rounded look. Use poster board or construction paper to make a head band (decorate it as they wish!) and tape the altered plastic bag on the inside of the band. Voila! Every little chef in your class has a hat! Include a discussion about why chefs wear hats when they cook to get a little extra lesson in =)

Then we look at the recipe. I make sure I choose recipes where the kids can do 90% of the steps themselves vs an adult-impressive recipe where the students can't touch most of it. We made muffins, pigs in blankets, fruit salad, and a milk shake. I created a template that leaves room so the kids can illustrate each step when we're done and rewrite the recipe using words they can understand.

We make sure we have the necessary ingredients and utensils and then we cook! They seemed to really enjoy using plastic knives and big spoons and mixing bowls.

Preparing the fruit.

Opening the oranges.

 

Adding the yogurt.

Stirring in the yogurt.

After we've tasted our masterpiece we draw what each step looks like in the appropriate boxes. This helps them remember what THEY DID in the recipe so they can make it again at home!

This unit takes a lot of teacher preparation for each recipe to run smoothly so make sure you get a lot of sleep throughout the week.

Sorting

This station uses a cheap drying rack that you could find at a dollar store. I hang it from a beam along the ceiling in my classroom so it hangs at a level that the kids can reach it easily. The topic is set (What could you find at the park?) and the kids have to decide which pictures that I provide belong in that group.

If the picture DOES belong in the group it gets clipped on to one of the laundry clips.

If it DOES NOT belong then it gets placed in a discard pile. When a kid is done they remove the pictures and place it back on the shelf for another kid to use.

This activity helps kids with sorting according to group definitions and with fine motor skills. I have 3 different groups with coordinating pictures that I pull out throughout the school year.

This is actually one of the only activities that is my own idea. I mean, sorting is a common skill in preschool and kindergarten but the drying rack is ALL MINE!

What are stations? Stations are activities that I've found/created for kids to use independently while I'm working with another set of students. The topics of the stations generally build on a topic that we've already learned about in class so there isn't a lot of new teaching that needs to be done.