Students will LOVE practicing engineering skills with this hands-on STEM Jellybean Structures. Best part? The taste-testing afterwards!
Ready for Peep catapults?! My kiddos loved this STEM activity so much they didn't realize they were learning engineering, physics and math!
Help your students identify questions & statments. These activities are awesome for teaching the difference between questions and statements.
There is a simple trick that school therapists and teachers use a lot for kids who have trouble sitting still. It is to put some Thera-Band stretched around a chair’s legs so that the student can push on it while sitting in their chair. It can help a child who has to be moving much...
My kiddos are always asking for hands on science activities, even if it’s one we have done over and over like this Hovercraft Science experiment project.
Yes, ANOTHER free printable this week. I know, if I could pinch you from here I would; free stuff is so dreamy! This is a quick matching manners worksheet I made tonight as a supplement to a Manner…
Want to learn how to make a catapult? It's easy and fun and the perfect STEM activity for kids of all ages! Toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten kids
What is hypotonia? How did we know our baby had low muscle tone? And what are we doing about it?
Easy catapult for kids
Do you have a budding engineer in the family? Check out these 25 simple activities for little engineers! #5 is my favorite!
My kiddos are always asking for hands on science activities, even if it’s one we have done over and over like this Hovercraft Science experiment project.
Make straw rockets! This simple rocket activity kept my crew busy for a long time, and it’s so simple to do! Blow into the straw and launch your rocket. Then do it again and again! We put these rockets together in about 10 min. The longest part was waiting for the glue gun to heat […]
Kids will love making this spooky Blinking Origami Eyeball art project, inspired by Krokotak, a really awesome Bulgarian Kids website!
The days have been so gorgeous lately! We haven’t been encumbered by triple digit temps. Yay!! Glorious sunny days that beg to be played outsi…
The Coast Guard is coming to hack off the limbs of these goats! These goats need better hiding spots!
Hey friends!! I am halfway through my first full week with my kiddos and I am TIIIIIRED but wow, I really love this year's bunch! I am so proud of how well they are doing already. We are going to have a great year! I wanted to share with you one of my favorite games to play with my firsties. Before I started teaching 1st grade I had never done weekly spelling tests. At the start of last year was looking for a fun way to practice the words every week and I came across the idea for this game. I honestly have no memory of who told me about it or if it was even called "Beat The Teacher". Y'all, my kids were OBSESSED with this game. They begged to play it every morning (and it showed up on more than 1 list of favorite memories in our memory books at the end of the year). It has already become a class favorite this year as well. The game is really simple. I give them a word and they write it in the middle of their white board. "Ready, set, go" and we all race to write the word in all 4 corners of the board. When you are finished you tap the end of your marker on your white board. If I win, I get the point. If a student wins, the class gets the point. So simple and so much fun! And let me tell you, I don't just LET them win. I am usually racing right along with them (the longer the word the harder the race for some reason)! We would always play to 10 (we took it to 20 later in the year) and I kept a tally in the corner of our board to see where we were. This year I am using ten frames to track our progress (I'm all about sneak attack subitizing practice haha). The scoreboard actually was a great opportunity for some real world math talk. They were always discussing how far ahead the leader was, or how many more we each needed to get 10 or 20. You can grab the scoreboard labels here. You could make the prize anything you want, but I always did stickers. For each game last year, I had a container filled with 28 stickers (one for every student). If they won, they each got a sticker, if I won I got all 28 stickers and wore them around all day. They thought that was pretty hilarious. On the match point I'd always say "This is for allllllll the stickers" and you could hear a pin drop in the room. The stakes were HIGH! There are just 2 rules: You can't start early and your words have to be written neatly enough to be read. The starting early issue gets stopped pretty early because if you get caught cheating, I automatically got the point for the round. The rest of the class does NOT like that! Instant self policing!! It also didn't count if you wrote so fast that you can't read the words. (We usually do these on whiteboards with handwriting lines so that generally helps the neatness factor). We play on our whiteboards but you could do this on a piece of paper and just write the word 4 times in a row. Recently I've been thinking up ways to use this to practice math facts...more on that in another post. I'd love to hear how this goes with your class if you decide to try it! :)
This baking soda and vinegar powered boat was such a fun way to build and explore movement powered by science. My kiddos and a niece and nephew built this boat using recycled materials, (a lot like we did last week with our evaporation experiment). This boat required a baking soda and vinegar reaction to power ... Read more
After this past week, my kiddos could certainly answer that question with a big YES! This week we learned what the setting is, what makes up a setting, and why on earth it matters so much! My kiddos rocked it, so I’m here to share what we did. I know that spending an entire week on setting might seem like…
We set up a ‘Quality Circle’ here at the British Council Bangkok last term. Ours is basically like a reflective practice group set up for teachers, by teachers. We meet twice a term. Every 5 weeks …
Yup, that’s right, a chess cheat sheet. Do I know how to play chess? Nope! My 6 and 7 year olds are in our school’s chess club and work on their skills and strategy once a week for an…
Get the world-famous elephant toothpaste formula recipe at Steve Spangler Science. Find instructions for our popular Elephant Toothpaste Experiment here!
Ready for Peep catapults?! My kiddos loved this STEM activity so much they didn't realize they were learning engineering, physics and math!
Even though every parent chooses to parent differently, there's one thing they can all agree on; these quotes about kids growing up too fast!
Not a day goes by when I don't go to bed thinking of fifty ways that I could have been a better mom to Ayva. I mean, I know I'm a great mom. I love Ayva more than anything, and I work hard to make her happy, but there's always room for improvement. Sometimes I
If You Really Want Your Children To Respect You
Help your students identify questions & statments. These activities are awesome for teaching the difference between questions and statements.
Using self esteem affirmations for kids can help target a child's negative beliefs about themselves and turn them into positive beliefs.
8 science-based ways to motivate children intrinsically to achieve long-term success and the joy of learning.
My mom wrote us a letter which we received after she died. These intentional words bring me peace and connection. These are some things I would want my own children to know and remember.
Here are some meaningful phrases to speak to your child at bedtime that instill confidence, and remind them of your love for them.
A beautiful 'letter to my child' describing a mother's hope that they know mommy tried & she still showed up every day & did her best.
There is a simple trick that school therapists and teachers use a lot for kids who have trouble sitting still. It is to put some Thera-Band stretched around a chair’s legs so that the student can push on it while sitting in their chair. It can help a child who has to be moving much...
Brides, grooms, guests and caterers. Apparently, anyone can be guilty of terrible behavior at a wedding!
