Clouds

We read a few cloud books and followed up with painting clouds.  This activity can be used for younger children with creating clouds and developing fine motor skills, or with older children studying weather and cloud types.  It's also a great way to paint snow or snowmen!


 

The cloud book we started with was Little Cloud by Eric Carle.  We read the book out loud a few times and then created our own clouds on blue construction paper.  To create our cloud mixture, I mixed equal parts liquid glue (such as Elmer's) and shaving cream.  It forms a sticky, fluffy substance (great for developing oral language and discussion) that can be painted/sponged/finger painting/foam brushed onto paper.  It will dry almost as puffy paint, in a textured, raised bubble, depending on how much is applied.  The children then wrote a story about a cloud.

Various clouds by kindergarteners.

This activity is also perfect for the Cloud Book, by Tomie De Paola and creating each type of cloud.

Leaf Rubbings

Such a great autumnal activity for any age group, because it can be extended and used in so many ways.  I do this with my preschooler just for fun and to create fall decorations, but at school, we can write leaf haikus, categorize leaves, as part of a nature study, for descriptive writing, leaf graphs- the possibilities are endless.

Materials:

leaves
paper (copy paper or scrap paper works well)
crayons (with paper peeled)

The first step is collecting leaves that are fairly freshly fallen and not too dry and brittle.  
Collect them in varying shapes and sizes (though smaller leaves are easier for smaller children). 

Place the leaves under the piece of paper and with the side of the crayon, rub over the top of the paper.  The outline of the leaf and all of the spines will appear.

Read alouds to support:

Planting Seeds

Planting seeds are a great science, math, writing activity that can be tied into literacy thematically with books like Titch, seed or gardening books.  They can be simply a fun activity or a daily exercise in graphing, writing, observation, and recorded through science journals.
Bean plants grow the most quickly and can be done as simply as by dampening a paper towel, folding it around a couple of seeds and placing them in ziplock bags.  This year I used sunflower seeds and clear Starbucks cups (reuse) and tied a ribbon around them as an end of the year present.

We grew them in math class and charted the growth on graphs each day.  A good tip is to always grow a couple of extra at home to switch them out if need be ; )

Butterflies in the Classroom

                       
One great annual project that we used to do, was raise butterflies in second grade.  It hit the standard of teaching the life cycle and the kids absolutely loved it.  Once you purchase a butterfly tent or net (circular standing net), you basically buy the eggs each year, raise them, and let the butterflies go.  The tent the children can physically sit in.  The butterflies only eat sugar water, which is easy to maintain on pieces of sponges placed inside the tent or net.  We kept track of the progress with science journals and did a mini-lesson on them each day.
A beautiful way to make science come alive in the classroom!

Bird Beaks

Part of the fifth grade curriculum is studying adaptations and how animals evolve and change to fit their environments.  One example we have used is birds, how they have beaks that fit their habitats and the type of food they eat.
A project that I have done in the past, is use different grips or vices as "bird beaks" and the children explore picking up various types of "food" with the tools provided.
I set up bowls with grains of rice (seeds), cooked and uncooked spaghetti as nest materials, twigs, gummy worms, and chunks of a material to show meat.  This can be extended in many ways and with a variety of materials.
The different types of beaks we used were tongs, scissors, a cup, tweezers, and pliers.  The kids had a chart to fill out as they used each type of beak with a different material.  We made observations in science notebooks and held a discussion afterwards to share our findings.