Salt & Food Color Letters

It is Fire Safety week so we talked a lot about 911 and made these neat salt & food color 911 signs.

Very easy. First write your letters/numbers in white glue. Our background was cereal box cardboard.  That makes is stiff enough to hold up to rough treatment!

Then sprinkle salt all over the glue and shake off the excess but not too much.  The more salt the better later. 

Let dry overnight. 

This next step is tricky for little fingers.  One drop at a time add liquid food color to the salt.

The color will "run" all by itself down the salt path.

Add extra drops as needed. 

We added a pipe cleaner handle with beads in order to hang it from a door handle or somewhere visible just in case of an emergency.  

SKILLS INVOLVED: tracing with glue, sprinkling salt, deciding the glue was covered, following instructions, fine motor beading and squeezing

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year writing the kids' names.  Lots of fun.

RECYCLE FACTOR:We used cereal boxes for the cardboard background, glue, salt, pipe cleaners, beads were on hand.  We did use up all the liquid food color that we had and had to get more.  The kids have a really hard time not just squeezing it all over the place.

Fire Truck Bowling

We turned empty water bottles into "flames" with a little bit of red, yellow and orange tissue paper. 

Each team got three flames and one fire truck.  The goal was to put out the fire.

Then we yelled "9-1-1 GO!"  and they pushed the trucks towards the flames.  Sometimes they got it and sometimes they didn't.  But it was a lot of fun trying.

Sick days

Pretty sick. Will catch up when I feel human again.  

Thankful Thursday

We have a really fun teacher for our resource time at school. She teaches Music and Gym (fondly referred to as "Movin' and Groovin'") twice a week each for all classes. That's 80 some kids to learn their names and personalities and keep them on task.  She always comes up with fun activities for the kids.

Today's class was lots of fun. Throw spiders at the web and see how they stick....

throw bean bags into the pumpkin's mouth and other fun stuff!!

So today's Thankful Thursday" is for Miss Lori.
Don't know what we'd do without you.

THANK YOU!!!!

3D Apples

We used the paper from the  rolled apple painting  to make these neat 3D apples.

Cut out 2 symmetrical apples. 

Fold in half with the color on the inside. 

Cover one half of one apple with white glue

Stick a leaf and a stem in the glue so that most of the leaf and stem is off the edge of the apple. Add more glue where the leaf and stem are still on the apple. 

Match up the glued apple with the other apple  and stick together.

Now add the core/center of the apple. We put it on the right side so it was like reading left to right, but it doesn't really matter. 

Add seeds. Last year the school provided snacks and we saved up apple seeds to be able to use real seeds.  This year we used cut out seeds. The kids decided how many 

Ta Daaa. A super cool apple that you read like a book. 

Outside...           Inside...    Outside...           Inside...    Outside...           Inside...

Of course they went on the door 

SKILLS INVOLVED: choosing 2 apples, gluing, deciding how many seeds, counting seeds, following instructions, fine motor

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year and repeated it this year. It is better with real seeds though.

RECYCLE FACTOR:We used the paper from the rolled apple painting which made it more interesting than using plain construction paper or just sending home the rolled painting as is.   The vines on the door were left from the monkeys and the caterpillars.

Thankful Thursday

Seems to be a season of nature's miracles in our class. We got a new fish for our tank during pet week. She was apparently sick and we lost one of our fish that had been around since this time last year.  Thought the sick tank situation was resolved. Then we lost her.

In the middle of the sentence telling the kids why there was only one fish in the tank we discovered we had not one, not two but three babies. Later we found that there were 6!!!!  

They are so tiny, but definitely came from the deceased sick fish since they look just like her  Not at all sure how that all happened but it did. 

For now the kids only know there are three. We are tired of explaining fish death and disposal to three-year-olds.  

Levi said it best.  "Cotton Candy had babies but she died so Nemo (our remaining adult fish) will take care of them."

Update: Two weeks later there are now 8 little babies for sure.  They are getting bigger, but they are still tiny.  Some of the kids can find them when they come out of hiding when they get fed.

Painting with Apples

This can be done with anything that even remotely rolls.

Roll the apple in the paint. We used red, yellow and green apples in red, yellow and green paint. 

Gather kids around a big flat box with paper covering the bottom.  Sometimes we use a small box that will fit a single piece of paper. Other times we use a large box like this. We have even been known to use a box bigger than this that the entire class can gather around. 

Drop the apple in.

Raise and lower the sides of the box to get the apple rolling. 

Change colors.  

Change colors again!

Then go back and roll the apples all over again!!

Once the papers dry we will use them as the base for another apple fun project. 

Thankful Thursday

A chef's hat, a double oven and a good imagination. What else do you need??

Me and My Tree

Everyone drew a picture of themselves and we added it to their Chicka Chicka Tree.

Thankful Thursday

The chrysalis turned black...

... And a few hours later the butterfly emerged. 

Truly amazing!!

IKEA Leaves

We have had IKEA leaves in our classroom for years.  We use them for instruction all the time. This week they were home to caterpillar and butterflies.

Eggs have been laid.

Caterpillar hatched.

Caterpillar ate and ate and got bigger!

Caterpillar turned into a chrysalis.

Another egg hatched. Still waiting for the chrysalis. 

Wow. The butterfly emerged from the chrysalis.

Pattern-Pillars

What do you get when you cross butterfly week with a lesson on patterning ?

 Pattern-Pillars of course!!!

These are fun and easy.  Cut out lots and lots of 1" circles of all colors.  A punch gets the job done pretty quickly. 

Adding machine tape was the perfect background.   Last year the kids picked their length and each tried to outdo the other. This year we decided the length and it was still even too long for the attention span of some. 

We worked in groups if two. Each child choose 2 colors and started gluing them down. 

The heads were random circles left over from another project   They added sticker eyes and drew a mouth. The mouth was supposed to be big so he could eat a lot!  Some were pretty funny. 

Then they climbed all over the door trying to eat the vine.

SKILLS INVOLVED: deciding 2 colors, gluing, patterning, drawing a mouth, following instructions, fine motor

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  We did this last year later in the school year with longer strips of paper and more complicated patterns.  It is always fun!

RECYCLE FACTOR:The circles were cut from scraps.  The adding machine paper was a donation.  The heads were leftover from another project.  The vines on the door were left from the monkeys.