Our New Sensory Center

This project has been on the top of my list for "Back to School" for quite some time.  It's making a sensory center from scratch using common items easily picked up at your local home improvement store.  First off-- credit and special thanks to Mr. Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasbord for his inspiration-- and more importantly-- his instructions for completing this project.

The materials needed are shown above.  They are PVC pipes (any size works), but I got the 1 inch-width kind, a number of PVC pipe connectors and a bin (not pictured).  In addition, you see some spray paint and a PVC pipe cutter.  I didn't have one of my own, so I picked it up for about ten dollars.  It cuts the pipes very easily!  There's orange spray paint and what I thought was a clear fix spray to prevent the paint from chipping.  Turns out it was a white glaze, so I turned my newly painted orange sensory center back into a white one--oh well, it happens!  For the complete set of directions and list of materials, please click HERE to get sent over to The Kindergarten Smorgasbord.

Here's the completed frame before the bin rests in it.  I pretty much made the dimensions match the bin's size and the height match the average height (from memory) of my first and second graders.  I didn't use any glue at the points of connection, but I'm sure you could to be extra safe.

With it being Halloween and all, I used spiders, skulls, bones and eyeballs to fill my sensory bin.  The rice is dyed with food coloring.  To do this, simply place some rice in a zipped plastic bag along with a few teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and your food coloring.  Shake it up and add more food coloring and alcohol if needed.  Leave it to dry over night in flat pans covered with aluminum foil to prevent you having to wash the pans when you are done...no clean up = awesome!  You can also use the same method to dye pasta.  Other fillers I have been saving are green and red bow tie pasta for December as well as white styrofoam peanuts for January.  Click HERE for 13 of Mr. Greg's sensory bin ideas throughout the year.  

Here is the completed project in my classroom.  I cut up an orange pool noodle to keep the bin sturdy.  Mr. Greg said this step was optional.  I like it. It's orange along with most of the things in my classroom.

I used witch fingers and candy corn clip art (free from TpT) to make my center activities.  With the fingers, the students sort them according to true and false equations.  Get them HERE.  With the candy corn, the students need to find the mystery number to make the equations true.  Get them HERE.  My mathematicians love this so far.  It really is fun to sift through, calming in a way for may of them too! 

I hope you feel as inspired as I was to make one of these over next weekend.

DIY Halloween Shaker

BOO!

It's almost here.  You know you are excited that it's on a Friday this year, right?  No "day after Halloween candy hangovers" to fret over.   I'm looking forward to having an little extra Halloween fun myself.  I made these Halloween shakers last year, but I never got around to blogging about them.  Oh I know that it's so hard to believe that a teacher got too busy, but it's true.  This idea was inspired by lots of fellow bloggers out there.  If you look around you will see sight word shakers, addition facts shakers, verb shakers, etc.  I've made some for spring and for Valentine's Day, too inspired by teachers that are nice enough to share their ideas.  

My Halloween shakers start off by recycling those fancy Tropicana orange juice bottles. I use my all time favorite GOOF OFF remover to take off the labels.  Let it sit on there for about 10 minutes and peel away.

Next, go to the supermarket and pick up some Goya beans that are black and orange--for obvious reasons.  I selected black beans and lentils.  It's odd that the bag says red lentils, but believe me, they were orange.  Here's the picture to prove it.

For my next trip, I headed to the local craft store to buy some orange glitter and some Halloween trinkets.  These eyeballs are actually erasers.  In addition, I picked up rubber spiders, skeletons and some fancy glitter pompoms.  Oh, I got some candy corn too.  

For my next step, I typed up a label for the front of the shaker and a bunch of words to be used to create a spooky Halloween story.  To do this, I printed out the words and cut them so that the same word was on the front and back of the cutouts.  These words were placed inside the shakers.  I laminated them, but I don't think it's necessary.  To use this activity, the students get fun Halloween-themed paper, start to write a spooky story, and shake the shaker to find spooky words to incorporate into their story.  It's like having a 3D word bank.  Check these out!

Shaky, shaky.  Click HERE to download the label for the front of the shaker as well as my words.

Have fun and happy haunting to all!

Spooktacular Ghosts

Well, it's still not midnight!  This means I can get this post in as part of what went on in my classroom this Halloween Week.  I wanted to make sure I added this simple craft I have done every Halloween for years--Making Cheesecloth Ghosts.  Here are the directions so you can file them away for next year.  I have to give credit to my Mom's friend Ms. Maddy for originally sharing this project with me.

Cheesecloth Ghosts

Materials:
Cut up pieces of cheesecloth (1 per child)
2 cups white school glue
1/2-3/4 cup of water
16 OZ plastic cups (1 per child)
plastic (not paper) plates (1 per child)
google eyes
black foam (for mouths)
ribbon
Halloween decorations (optional)

1.  Dilute the white glue with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water.  I do this in a one of those dish washing tubs.  Mix well.

2.  Dip a piece of cheesecloth in the mixture. Get it saturated!

3.  Take out the cheesecloth and squeeze out the mixture until it stops dripping.

4.  Drape the cheesecloth over a cup (the cup should be turned over, on top of the plate.  Stretch out the cheese cloth so it is over the plate's edges.

5.  Let ghosts dry (on humid days, this make take up to three days).

6.  Remove the cup and plate.  Pop up the head of your ghosts gently with your fingers, so it's not flat from the cup.

7.  Decorate ghosts.  I usually add a ribbon to hang the ghost, google eyes, a black foam mouth, pom pom nose and other Halloween decorations. 

There you go!  I usually am lucky enough to have a parent come in to help with this project.  Once the materials are set up, the children can do their ghosts in small groups.  Have a good week everyone!

Mr. Giso's Class Celebrates Halloween with Pumpkin Globes

The first grade in my school (all three classes) was fortunate to have pumpkins for each child donated this year.  WOW!  I had always wanted to make pumpkin globes, so this was my chance.  It was definitely a project!  I was very careful and knew it would be important to test each step ahead of time.  Also, my two grade one team members and I put our heads together to come up with a variety of solutions when we ran into trouble with this project.  The result is these fool proof directions for you to enjoy.  They look fantastic, so save this blog post for next season.  

First the pumpkins got cleaned with a bleach wipe.  After they dried, we used a small sponge to dab on acrylic blue paint.  Water based paint will not stick to the pumpkin.  We even did the bottoms of the pumpkins and lay them back right on the newspaper.  I placed the paint in cleaned meat trays for easy disposal.  Also, each desk was covered with a sheet of newspaper. 

Here are the pumpkins set out to dry on my kidney table.  The children thought they looked like Smurfs... so true.  After they were fully dried, I sprayed the pumpkins with a clear, acrylic spray.  Make sure it is low odor!  Also, I used the gloss can because I wanted the pumpkins to shine.  I let the pumpkins dry and resprayed them two more times (see below).  For about 20 pumpkins, I bought two cans and had plenty left over.

In the meantime, I conducted a few geography mini-lessons.  My goal was to introduce my students to the following points.
•Maps and globes show our planet in different ways
•Our planet has more water than land
•There are 7 main continents
•There are 4 main oceans
•Being a cartographer (map and globe maker) means being as accurate as possible. 
I used these catchy poems by Evan-Moor.  They came from an old big book of poems.  I tried to find the item, but I don't think it's made anymore.

Next, students colored a set of labels for the continents green.  You see them in the photograph above.  I printed these out from a geography blackline I had.  I printed them on full page labels made by Avery.  The box said they worked in copiers.  After that, the students cut out the labels and stuck them on.  We did this together, label by label.  I had plenty of maps and blow up globes around.  I also used Google Earth on my ENO board.  If you have not checked that out yet, let me say WOW!  I was able to spin the globe around and zoom in and out.  Click HERE to download this.

Before the labels were put on, I had a helpful parent cut out leaves out of foam board and write each child's name on them for me.  I punched a hole in the leaf and tied it on with two shades of green curly ribbon to look like vines.

Here is the finished project.  I love these!

Simply click HERE to printout a free set of the globe poems and directions for making this terrific project.  Happy Haunting to All!