10 Ideas for Earth Day

Make every day count with these Earth Day activities!

1. Earth Day Sensory Bin---Stock your sensory table with a filler and add plenty of blue and green manipulatives for center time fun! 

I used dried beans for the filler and then went crazy with the Earth Day theme. You'll find plastic milk jug lids, styrofoam egg cartons, measuring scoops, and even a miniature trashcan and recycling bin in this sensory table! 

2. Recycle Boy/Girl Art---Watch the imaginations unfold as your class makes a Recycled Boy or Girl using recycled materials!

The prep for this one is super easy, too! 

Simply cut a variety of shapes from old magazines, grocery store ads, and food packages and then grab crayons, scissors, and glue. That's it!

3. Dramatic Play Recycling Box---Bring Earth Day into your Homeliving Center with this Recycling Box! Students will love sorting things into the recycling box just like they see mom and dad do at home! My teacher friend, Melissa, covered a cardboard box with green bulletin board paper and added a recycling logo she found in Google images. She saved food boxes, plastic bottles, and cardboard tubes for her students to recycle as they played in the Dramatic Play kitchen area. What a great way to incorporate a practical experience for teaching youngsters about Earth Day!

4. Earth Day Books---I'm always on the lookout for good books to support my themes and I have accumulated a full shelf for Earth Day! I just wish we had time to read them ALL!

One of my all time favorite books is the Caldecott winner A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry. I read it in autumn as the leaves begin to change and again in the springtime when everything starts to turn green. 

5. Earth Day Fingerpainting---Get out the paints in shades of blues and greens for this one! 

6. Recycled Crayons---By the time Earth Day rolls around, your classroom crayon supply might be looking a little worn down. Take those old crayons and recycle them into beautiful new ones! Gather the green and blue crayons you want to recycle. Then, have your students peel off the old wrappers and break the crayons into smaller pieces. Place the broken pieces in a silicone muffin tray and bake at 225 degrees for 12-18 minutes. Check your oven often as the crayons are baking. Once they are melted, carefully remove the tray from the oven, allow the crayons to cool and harden, then pop the crayons out of the tray. Your new recycled colors will be a favorite in the art center! 

7. We Can't Live Without Worms---Be sure to teach your students that we really can't live without worms. Yes, they're wiggly and slimy but worms are also an integral part of our ecosystem. Earthworms help air and water go down under the ground. They break down organic matter and help to fertilize plants. Read a few of these wormy books to your class and help them understand why worms are wonderful!

8. Earth Day Handprint---You'll love this so much you'll want to keep it on display 'til the end of school! Cut a huge circle out of white bulletin board paper and have your students decorate it with their green and blue handprints! It makes an impressive door display while getting the point across that Every Day is Earth Day!

9. Go Take a Hike---Earth Day is the perfect time for a walk around your school campus or to a nearby park! Go slow, take your time, and enjoy the Earth! And while you're out and about, why don't you collect any trash you see?

10. Have a Reading Picnic---Pack a basket of your favorite Earth Day books instead of lunch and find a shady spot for a Reading Picnic! Your class will never forget the joy of taking school outside on Earth Day!

I remember celebrating Earth Day with my first class back in 1989. I hope some of the things we learned thirty years ago are good habits now. And I hope some of these activities I do next week with my little class will make an impact on them and on our Earth. 

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Insects Science Center

We're back from Spring Break and ready for our Insect study! 

I filled the Science Center with everything I own about insects! Come take a look!

The sensory table has dried green peas as a filler and lots of cute little plastic creatures. I added a tray so the kids can sort insects and get a fine motor workout with the tongs. There's a set of sturdy cardboard flashcards in the tub, too. I love including these real photographs for my students.

Gigantic, larger than life insects are available for students to observe with a magnifying glass. They can also use these as a model for drawing and sketching.

Books and puzzles are important in the Science Center. 

Students will sequence the life cycle of a butterfly with these hands on pieces. I also have cards showing this process in our pocket chart. 

Are you studying Insects this month? 

The Weather is Wonderful!

Spring is finally here and it's the perfect time to learn about Weather! 

During our Morning Meeting, we always assess the weather and pick the best word for our weather chart. I thought the kids would also enjoy keeping track of the weather when they're home so we made a Weather Wheel!

A cheap paper plate is the base of the Weather Wheel while a clothespin marks the day's weather. So simple but the kids absolutely love them!

To prep, draw lines on the plate dividing it into quarters. Have your students draw a weather picture in each section. We did the basics... sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy. Once the drawings are finished, punch a hole in the top, string a piece of yarn or pipe cleaner in it, and attach the clothespin.  That's it!

Our Sensory Table was filled with rainbow colored rice, huge snowballs, snowflake cookie cutters, sunny yellow pom poms, clear glass beads, and rainbow mini erasers. 

One of the highlights of weather week was making a Water Cycle Bracelet! After reading about rain and the water cycle, we took colored pony beads and sequenced them in order on a pipe cleaner to demonstrate the Water Cycle. You could also use yarn for the bracelets. 

White bead---the clouds collect tiny drops of water.

Blue bead---raindrops fall from the sky.

Brown bead---rain goes into lakes, rivers, oceans, the ground, and it makes puddles.

Yellow bead---the sun heats up the water.

Clear bead---tiny water droplets rise from the collected water. Some of it completely evaporates and some of the tiny drops are collected in clouds.

The water cycle begins again.

Not only is this a great visual for the students as they start to understand the Water Cycle, but parents absolutely love how much we're learning at school!

Does your class enjoy Write the Room activities? Mine does!

I made a colorful set of weather word cards and "hid" them all around the classroom. Students walked around, found the weather cards, and then wrote the word on their Write the Room recording sheet. I am working hard to get this Weather resource ready for you in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Another weather activity we made was this Weather Mobile! 

By the way, the Weather Mobile will also be included with the Write the Room activity in my TPT store! 

We made our Weather Mobiles during small groups at the Teacher Table but you could also have your students create them at morning Table Time. 

After students colored and cut the weather cards, they laced them on the mobile.  To prepare the mobile, I hole punched six holes along the bottom of a sentence strip. I also cut pipe cleaners in half to use to lace the weather cards. With a little modeling and step by step directions, my kids were able to lace their weather cards to hang down from the sentence strip. A little twist of the pipe cleaner ends secured the cards in place.  The best thing about using pipe cleaners instead of yarn is that it doesn't tangle!

Beautiful spring weather and lots of Learning at the Teacher Table made it a great week!

Five for Friday: Nine Days & 746 Pictures

Does anyone feel like the last few weeks of school are CRAZY?  Like more crazy than the beginning of school?  Crazier than the holidays? If you're nodding your head, please know you're not alone.  I've got NINE days left of school and a To Do list a mile long! 

 

Here's a look at my Five for Friday hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching.

We're learning about frogs & turtles, cattails & lily pads.  We call this unit Pond Life!  In the sensory tub, I left the dried green peas we used during our insect studies and added a collection of fun little pond creatures. 

Next week, we'll clean out the peas and put water in the sensory tub.  Note to self: Take towels to school.

 

 

Our Moms were thrilled with their Mother's Day gifts!  The kids used small canvas squares, oil pastels, and watercolors to create beautiful flower artwork.  I should've kept one for myself.  They were gorgeous! 

We also assembled a class cookbook.  Each child dictated how Mommy cooks their favorite food and illustrated the recipe.  A treasured keepsake for sure!

 

 

 

We took a strip of Dollar Tree bulletin board border and used it for a quick number review.  Students loved using the BINGO dot markers to show their number knowledge!

 

 

Georgia is having the best spring weather!  We're getting the right combination of sunshine & rain with nice, moderate temperatures.  Here's my favorite southern shrub...Carolina Baptista.  The yellow buds only last a few weeks, but I look forward to it every spring.

This furry guy always looks forward to his planter box getting filled with several catnip plants.  Good thing these herbs recover from being squashed down by a ten pound kitty.

 

 

I uploaded 746 pictures to the Costco photo processing lab this afternoon.  Obviously, I haven't printed any of my pictures since...well, let's see...since the beginning of the school year.  I had planned to work on my student memory books all day Saturday but the order is so large it won't be ready until Sunday morning.  Note to self...Print photos on a monthly basis for next year's class.

 

 

Five for Friday: Icky Interesting Insects

We've had an interesting week of insects!  The class realized insects aren't really icky but are a rather important part of our world.  I'm linking with Doodle Bugs Teaching to tell you all about our week.

I hope everyone has some sort of sensory tub in their classroom.  I really don't know what I'd do without mine. It's in the way sometimes and does require a bit of upkeep.  The benefits, however, far outweigh the inconveniences!  For this week's study of insects, here's what the tub looked like...

 

I found gigantic plastic insects at Hobby Lobby for the main component.  The kids LOVE them!  My sensory filler is a bag of dried green split peas.  The peas are teeny tiny so little fingers really enjoy sifting through them.  I added a small bucket and plastic scoops, too.  The final tub item is a box of beautiful insect photographs I found several years ago at Goodwill.  These flashcards are printed on heavy cardboard so they are very sturdy and perfect for the sensory tub.

 

 

 

 We made these adorable bee hives with bubblewrap!  Then the kids used a yellow stamp pad and crayons to make fingerprint bees swarming around their hives.  Such an easy craft and cute enough to display in the hall!

 

 

 

 

When you're learning about bees you must have a taste test of  honey!  My little learners gobbled up a treat of buttery Ritz crackers topped with a dollop of sweet honey. 

We learned about the life cycle of a ladybug and created a wonderful little craft.  I found the ladybug patterns and colorful life cycle pictures on TPT by seller Teacher's Breathing Space for only $1.  What a deal!  Here's a link to this awesome product.

 

Everyone enjoyed Dr. Jean's Insect Song from the Kiss Your Brain CD.  Have you sung this one with your class?  It's a fun, catchy tune which helps reinforce what you're learning as you study insects.  Let me warn you...once you sing it, you'll have a very hard time not to sing and hum about insects the rest of the day!