Teaching about Community Helpers

Kindergartners love to see people in uniforms, and love to learn about what these people do. Teach students about community helpers such as police officers, firefighters, medical personnel and postal workers. Follow THIS link for tips on how to teach your classroom about different community helpers.

Teaching Pattern Activities to Kindergartners

Kindergartners love to recognize and learn about patterns because it allows them to anticipate things to come. Teach students about patterns in songs, books, hands-on activities and games to help students learn about patterns.

For example, once students have heard the patterns in the story "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss they'll anticipate the words and phrases to come.

Teaching Math with Grids

Check out THIS step-by-step tutorial on how to solve math problems in grids.

Letter- Sound Games for Kindergarten

Above all else, Kindergartners learn about the letters and their sounds. Phonics helps teach students the sounds of each letter, and how they relate to eachother.


Teach students about letters with Letter-Sound Games & Activities such as rhyming, guessing what word a letter starts with and memory games.

Making Goop

Thanks to the HUGE snow storm in Atlanta (an unheard of 6 inches of snow in my yard... WAY to much for this Florida girl!!!) I've been house-bound with my three kids since Monday. Desperate times call for desperate measures.... so I decided to make a "green goop" recipe that was in my son's superhero coloring book.


Recipe:
2 cups salt
2/3 cup water
1 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup cold water

Directions:
Mix 2 cups salt and 2/3 cup water; heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat, quickly add mixture of 1 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup cold water. Stir quickly and add green food coloring. Return mix to the heat if it is too "goopy."

TIPS:
Mix the cornstarch and cold water BEFORE you add it to the heated salt mix.  I didn't do this (and didn't notice the phrasing in the directions) and the mix was unbearably difficult to stir with the wooden spoon.

I thought the mix would be more slime-like, but it actually looked like sandy cookie dough, and wasn't very wet at all.

Don't eat the goopy mixture, it won't taste good, and frankly it doesn't smell too good either. Sadly, the kids decided they wanted to play with their new play-doh sets from Christmas, so my creation was placed in a plastic container.

Paper Mache Volcano Project

Nothing screams science project like paper mache or a volcano model. So why not combine the two into one project?

The paper mache model certainly is more portable than the clay model, and a lot less costly too, so gather some newspaper and get your inner crafter going with THIS simple project appropriate for elementary and middle school classrooms.

Who's On First- Calculating Bases

When I saw the title "How to Calculate the Area of a Base" I couldn't help but think of the classic Abbot & Costello bit "Who's On First".  While my article on calculating bases of different shapes isn't quite as funny- it's completely informational, actually- I just wanted to make sure to pass along this clip and bring a smile to your face.... what a way to start the new year!