What a natural – Earth Day and Arbor Day (no pun intended)! This year the Arbor Day Foundation will plant trees in the national forests from donations for you. Commemorate a child’s birth with a tree in one of America’s national forests! They also have on their website lots of ideas for activities with...
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Friday I attended the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning conference and I was blown away by the amount of information available. I already use computers and our i-pad in the classroom but it was wonderful to learn of other applications and uses to reinforce and help my students learn. Fortunately I have...
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Remember this game? Well, I do! It is fun but for my students, although very bright, I think it would be hard at first so I had an idea! Why not make our own version? I’m going to wear a big safari-type hat and explain to my students that we are going on an...
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We are currently reading “Stuart Little”. My students have really enjoyed listening to this tale! It is so well done and clever! I was thinking about reading month, “What to do?” I could do the pizza slices (kids love food!). They would get a different color slice for each different genre that they read. ...
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We just put on this all school event – a Native American Powwow that was a huge success! The local newspaper, Observer and Eccentric, wrote a nice article about it.
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One of the activities that every kid loves it building with these large scale plastic rods with connectors. Today’s challenge was to make a rocket as a team. They understood the concept of making a rocket but working as a team…well, some did and some didn’t. If you don’t have the tubes a simple...
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An excellent activity to help children understand intolerance is to do this simulation of segregation. It is a powerful activity that effects everyone involved. It is based on a similar activity done in 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. This is a video taken 2 years later for the teacher,...
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As a beginning writing project for all of our students, we had them design, build then write a manual for that robot. As unique as all of students are, so were the robots. The manuals had to include: a labeled diagram, a section to tell what the robot can do and a trouble-shooting...
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Simplified pencil-sharpener Open window (A) and fly kite (B). String (C) lifts small door (D) allowing moths (E) to escape and eat red flannel shirt (F). As weight of shirt becomes less, shoe (G) steps on switch (H) which heats electric iron (I) and burns hole in pants (J). Smoke (K) enters hole...
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Creating a colonial marketplace is a fun activity for kids to participate in. Colonist usually exchanged things they made or crops they grew for things they needed. This is called “bartering” or trading. Making a good trade was important for both parties – it needed to be fair for everyone! Have your child...
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