Architecture

The first week of summer our main field trip was to a large playground dubbed "Chutes and Ladders." I decided to use "Architecture" as our theme for the week so we could talk about how things get built! Here is a list of a few of the activities we did throughout the week.

Math

• Grid work house - http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/GridWordHouse.htm
• "Look how I measure up!" - using paperclips as a non-standard measurement tool. We talked about non-standard measurement tools and ways to measure things if you don't have a ruler, etc. handy. Then we measured each other and things around the room using paper clips.
• "Bubble Mania" - measuring circumference, diameter and radius. We talked about circles and how they are measured then we made soap bubble prints and measured them.

We used VERY rough versions (i.e. handwritten, sans clipart) of these worksheets to record our data. You can find THESE fancied up versions in my TpT store by clicking here.
• Measuring AROUND the room - the kids used string and measuring tapes to find 5 round things in the room to measure the circumference and diameter of.

This worksheet can be found on my TpT site for FREE. Just click here!

Check back tomorrow for more activities from our "Architecture" theme.

Stop by on Tuesday for "Toddler Tuesday." Since I was in the toddler room for a year and a half before I moved to school-age I'll be showcasing a few of the fun things I did with the little ones!

Frozen Excavation

Early in June one of our weekly themes was "Archeology." I had seen this super fun idea over at Counting Coconuts and decided to try it. I wasn't sure how the kids would respond since I have such a large age range (K-5th) but honestly you would have thought it was Christmas morning and I'd just given them all iPods! In fact just yesterday (a month later) one of the boys asked me when we could do the "frozen thing" again.

To make them I just froze plastic animals from Dollar Tree into three different shaped containers. I should have done it earlier in the day but of course I procrastinated and stuck them in the freezer at 10 pm so they weren't fully frozen the next morning which meant pushing back the activity to the next day. I also added food coloring and a little oil. I was hoping the oil would look bubbly once the water froze but it didn't and honestly just made more of a mess when it came to clean-up so I'd recommend leaving it out!

I put the frozen blocks in our sensory table and gave the kids little cups of flour, salt, sugar, sand, dirt, warm and cold water. They also got spoons and eye droppers. Then I let them go at it. We rotate through stations in the morning so there are usually only 2-3 at a station but I had to give out lots of reminders to stay in your own station that morning because they all kept congregating by the sensory table to "just watch." :)

Animals I used...

The mess at the end!

Actually the mess was even worse when I opened the table at the end of the day to clean it out and everything had fully melted. It was like the bottom of a really dirty river...lucky me! They don't call me the "messy teacher" for nothing :)