Just after Ari started back to school this last January, his teacher handed out a piece of paper outlining this year’s school wide science fair project.  I’ve talked before about what a wonderful and lasting effect the science fair had on my own life so I was excited to finally have the chance to share that joy with my own school-aged kid.

Olivia talked a few weeks ago about helping a fifth grader with his science project.  Just to help any mom’s who may still be grappling with their own fears of science, here’s another story–how Ari and I put together his project.

The real problem we (I) had was coming up with a question worth answering.  When I originally broached the subject, my ever-so-typical boy threw out the idea of farts, and testing what foods made him the fartiest.  I’ll be honest–I thought it was a pretty cool project, but I wasn’t so sure his teachers would feel as I did.  So we decided to do that one at home, and think of something else to take to school.

It took three weeks to come up with a new idea; I kept waiting for that spur-of-the-moment question; I kept listening for Ari to muse over some aspect of his daily life.  Finally, as Ari was helping me wrap a birthday gift for Joe, that special moment happened.  We were trying to wrap a box with a brown paper bag, and discovered that the tape we were using was horrible at holding it together.  I think it took us about 18 pieces. At some point Ari said “I wonder if we have any stickier tape we could use.” (more…)

Objective:
Learn about hibernation, run around a lot, be creative, work on sorting, categorizing, counting and number writing.

Materials:
Large cardboard box, or ‘den’ (procured beforehand from a furniture store)
Glue, tape, markers.
Download and print the Hibernation Activity Sheet, one for each child.
Download and print the Food Cards, cut as many as needed.
Book: Time to Sleep by Denise Flemming (Note: I’m sure there are better Hibernation books out there, I was not impressed with this one, it’s just all our library had in).

Optional: Have them bring a toy bear or other ‘hibernating animal’ for show-and-tell. I had them bring bears.

Introduction:
1. Read: Time to Sleep by Denise Flemming
2. Discuss: What does it mean to hibernate? What kind of animals hibernate? Why do they hibernate? Do you wish you could hibernate?
3. Explain: Hibernation is when an animal slows its body down for a long time, often during winter. Lots of different animals hibernate, not just bears: snails, skunks, turtles, woodchucks, ladybugs etc. Animals hibernate because in the winter it’s hard for them to find enough food. (more…)

Our co-op preschool is in full swing again. That means every 5 weeks I’ll be posting my lesson plan. This year’s charge is to find a way to incorporate the outdoors AND the Montessori method. Here is what I came up with this week.

Note:  Fall is the perfect time to be out searching for seeds. The kids loved it! Also note that this activity took me two days. One day we did the walk (“field work”), the next day we did the sorting (“lab work”).

Objective:
To introduce the concept of how seeds travel (disperse), have a good excuse to get outside and explore, and practice sorting and categorization skills.

Materials:
Bags (1 for each child, for collecting seeds)
Old socks (to walk around outside and attract seeds)
Egg cartons (1 for each child, for sorting seeds)
Touch Box (box full of seeds you have previously collected)
Worksheet about how seeds travel (see below)
Glue, tape, markers.
Book: The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl.

Introduction:
1. Read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl.
2. Discuss: Do seeds move? How do they move? Do they have little legs? How far do they go? What would it be like to be a seed? etc…
3. Explain to the kids that today we are going to be scientists; we’re going to try and find seeds and figure out how they move. (more…)

I did this activity with my co-op preschool class a few months ago. It was a hit. Everyone had to have their turn dressing up like a bird. I think they might have even learned something too…

So, I happily present to you a basic outline of how I conduct Build-A-Bird. (more…)

I’m part of a co-op preschool, me and 4 other Moms rotate once a week hosting 2 hours of madness in our homes.  A few weeks ago I got to plan a lesson around the letter S. I focused the activities around the “senses” that start with S: sight, sound and smell. We had class indoors due to a chilly morning wind, but I’m including notes on what I had planned to do outside had the weather cooperated or had I warned parents to dress their children accordingly.

This lesson centered nicely around the following two books:

Introduction Book: My Five Senses, by Aliki

SIGHT

Book: What do You do With a Tail Like This, by Steve Jenkins, Robin Page (Read the section: What do you do with Eyes Like These)
– Do we use our eyes the same way as the animals in the book?
– What do we use our eyesight for?
– Let’s go on a scavenger hunt and see how well we can use our eyes.

Activity: Scavenger Hunt
Cut out or print off  small pieces of paper with the letter S. Write clues on the back of each paper that will lead the children to find the next clue. Hand a child the first clue, follow the clues to find all the letter S’s. Note: An outdoor scavenger hunt would be perfect for this.

Materials:
-Letter S Papers
-Tape

SMELL (more…)