Oh Pinterest, You Have Me Hooked

Pinterest is an amazing site where you can find everything about anything. It is like a virtual cork board where you pin all of those great ideas, arts and crafts and recipes that you want to try.  At Kids Junction we have a collaborative Pinterest account.  The boards are set up so that all of our teachers can use them and add the cool sites and ideas that they find.

I think that there may need to be some sort of special self help group for all of the teachers who are addicted to pinning every idea that they find.

Check ours out.  Maybe you will find a gem for your classroom.

http://www.pinterest.com/kidsjunction/

Threading Art

We had so many pipe cleaners this year we had to find some fun and inventive ways to use them.  Here are some of our 3D art projects.

 

 

My Little Bean Counters

We are learning about plants and seeds.  This is one of our math activities for this week.

Equipment

• beans or other seeds (we also used corn kernels)
• paper folded in 6ths (or quarters for a faster finish)
• crayons
• white glue

 

Process

• Children write a number in a square (I let the kiddos pick their own numbers to make it a little more fun)
• Children make the number by gluing on the corresponding amount of beans/seeds
• When done they can read and show their numbers to the teacher or a friend (checking)

Skills

• fine motor skills (pinching and placing beans)
• number writing skills
• making sets
• counting sets
• using white glue (a small dot and that's the lot)

Sorting

We had fun sorting beans and pasta pieces in the sensory table.

We had a mix of different pasta shapes and a variety of beans and some corm kernels in the sensory table.  We used small cups (the kind you put your ketchup in at fast food restaurants)

Skills

• Sorting
• Counting
• Fine motor skills

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We are learning about life-cycles so we decided to read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

As a math extension activity we created our very own nibbled leaves.  The kiddos LOVED this activitiy.

Equipment

• brown, yellow and green construction paper (1 back ground and ten leaves per child)
• hole punchers
• markers and glue

I made the backgrounds by cutting out and gluing the vines to the yellow paper.  I also cut out the leaf shapes ahead of time.

Process

• The children wrote the numbers 1-10  on their leaves (1 on one leaf, 2 on the next leaf etc)
• Then they used the hole punches and punched the corresponding number of holes on each leaf.
• When they were done the children glued their leaves onto the vine.  (I did not tell them they had to put them in number order but many of them did so)
• When the vine was completed the children dictated a story to go along with it.
• While the children were working we talked about the story that we had read and what the caterpillar ate.  We also talked about the butterfly life-cycle.

Skills

• counting with cardinality
• reading and writing numbers
• ordering numbers from 1 to 10
• using a hole punch
• developing hand muscles strength
• gluing
• recalling or retelling the events in a story

Slime or Gak

I found this one somewhere through pinterest.  There are plenty of recopies and they are all pretty much the same.  Do a search for slime or gak. I made the slime myself because I didn't want my students handling the borax.  Here are some fun pictures.

Investigating Sea Shells

One of the awesome grandparents from my classroom bought in some sea shells from the Florida keys.  When she asked me if I would like some shells I was excited about the offer.  I was amazed when she bought them in...... I was wonder how one person could collect so many, there were a bazillion(a new mathematical term)  shells in that bag. Even better, they were washed and sorted too.

The children were so excited and couldn't wait to become investigators and inspect the shells.  I put the shells in the sensory table with some water.  The water makes the shells look more vibrant.

Here are some great pictures of my little scientists at work.

Skills

The children were using so many different skills they amazed me. Here are some of the things I observed.

• sorting by color, shape, size, texture and patterns
• comparing sizes
• experimenting with sinking and floating
• measuring and pour
• using magnifying glass
• fine motor skills picking up very small shells
• talking about the creatures that lived in the shells
• sharing beach experiences
• role playing the "Little Mermaid"