Free 5 Little Speckled Frogs: Interactive Storybook
Get a free copy of an interactive storybook. Kids can interact with frogs and build number sense with this free interactive storybook. [Read more…]
The Three Little Pigs: STEM
Three Little Pigs STEM Activity
Bring “The Three Little Pigs” to life with this fun STEM activity. Kids will love exploring the science in the story, by interacting with weight and the power of wind. Quick and easy prep + age appropriate science experiments. Hands-on fun with “Three Little Pigs STEM”!
I’ve had this post floating around in my head for a long time! I have always loved fairy tales. They are just magical. I love the absurdity and whimsy. One of my favorites is “The Three Little Pigs”. There are so many versions of this story and it’s great fun to read them all. This post shows how we brought “The Three Little Pigs” to life and combined the story with science and math!
Last summer, my kids and some of their friends wanted to make a movie. At the time, I was preparing to present at a preschool conference and had all my fairy tale fun spread out in the craft room. The kids saw the three little pigs and the wolf and inspiration hit! They wanted to bring “The Three Little Pigs” to life.
I collected a bunch of milk cartons to make the little pig’s houses, so the kids got busy creating. All the houses were very easy to make. We glued pieces of straw to the straw house, we actually used brown paper cut like sticks (you can substitute real sticks) for the stick house, and scrapbook paper that looked like bricks for the house of bricks.
The houses were really cute, but I wanted to bring in science. We talked about the various materials and the weight of each material. The kids went outside to collect straw (we used grass), sticks, and bricks (stones). We brought all the materials inside. They filled up each house with the same type of materials. Then, we compared the different weights by placing them on the scale.
After we had all of our houses ready, we broke out the very adorable Three Little Pig’s set from Melissa and Doug. They matched the pigs to the houses and got busy working on their script!
I forgot to mention the best part of this activity! Break out your hair dryer. It makes the reenactment irresistible. I velcroed the Big Bad Wolf to the top of my hair dryer. Then, he can actually “blow” down the houses.
So. Much. Fun.
They did end up making their video, but before that we had a great time blowing down the different houses. The straw house was out of there in an instant!
The stick house took a little more effort.
And the brick house could not be blown down! It was great for discussing the strength and impact of wind on different types of structures. We ended up discussing tornadoes and how they can impact our world.
We had a great time engaging with the fairy tale, looking at the science behind it, and creating our own movie!
It was a really fun activity and I can see parts of it enhancing a unit on the “Three Little Pigs”. It’s always great to bring STEM into a unit of study on fairy tales, the whimsy of the stories enhances the science and math exploration. It’s sure to draw in all of your little learners.
I am in the process of creating a “Grab & GO” set on fairy tales. They are great for writing centers, word walls, use in large group writing activities, identifying and categorizing thematic words, comparing and contrasting elements of fairy tales, and so much more!
This set isn’t quite done, but you can see all my other Grab & Go sets here! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found some fun ideas to use with your kids, too!
Greater Gator: DIY
Greater Gator DIY: Math Manipulatives
“Greater Gator” is an easy to create math manipulative. Math manipulatives are wonderful for providing kids with concrete opportunities to interact with mathematical concepts. Greater Gator is an adorable character that will help your kids really understand and interact with the concept of greater than and less than. Make Greater Gator with supplies found at the Dollar Store. Follow the easy DIY directions for a cheap and easy way to bring the concept of greater than and less than to life!
The Tooth, The Whole Tooth, And Nothing But The Tooth
Cross-Curricular Activities to Explore Dental Health
The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth! Check out this collection of fun and GROSS activities to engage young children in the exploration of teeth! Practice flossing with play dough, count, add, and subtract with ‘plaque’, and explore ways to keep your teeth clean.
New and Improved Addition Machine
DIY Addition Machine: Math Manipulatives to Excite Your Kids
I am a huge believer in hands-on learning. Children are able to become active participants in their own learning through using manipulatives. They are able to learn by physically handling and manipulating objects to explore a concept.
I love using manipulatives with math concepts. It really transforms the math concepts into concrete learning experiences. Young children and kinesthetic learners really benefit from interacting with a concept and bringing it to life.
A long time ago, I started using a PVC pipe with a drain at the bottom to teach addition. I used a permanent marker to write an addition sign on the drain and my students were able to pour manipulatives into both sides of the pipe. Then, they would open the drain at the bottom and find the total number of manipulatives. It is a great visual for addition. See another blog post on addition here.
A month ago, I found this amazing picture on Pinterest. See the pin here. I couldn’t find the original blog post, so I’m not able to give credit, but you can see the awesome idea below.
I tried to recreate this amazing addition machine and came up with two different options.
In the first, I used an icing container as the base. I used the same PVC drains that I already had in my bag of tricks.
Wash and peel off the label.
Trace the drain’s opening on the top of the icing container and cut it out with an X-acto knife.
Cut the hole a little small, so that the top will sit snugly against the drain. Then, hot glue the icing top to the drain.
If you choose, decorate your addition machine. I used Washi tape. You have a quick and easy addition machine. Kids put the manipulatives in and take off the top to see the sum.
I loved the way the first addition machine turned out; however, I really wanted a see-through container for the bottom. I wanted kids to be able to watch the manipulatives fall through to create a new “whole”.
I chose to use a peanut butter jar, but it could be done with any see through plastic container. Another option is to use a mayonnaise jar. This will eliminate the allergens from peanuts.
Both the peanut and mayo jars have thicker plastic lids. I was not able to cut this lid as easily as the icing lid. I used the same X-acto knife to start the hole and then moved to an old kitchen knife. The circle was not neat. It came out raggedy and larger than the PVC drain.
To correct this problem, I hot glued the lid to the drain. Then, I cut out a circular piece of foam to line the inside of the lid. This helps to cover the raggedy cut and to guide manipulatives back through the hole. I hot glued the foam to the inside of the lid. Your addition machine is complete! It is a very quick project to make.
My kids and I explored many different types of manipulatives to use with this particular version of the machine. We found that small pompoms seem to work the best. To help test it out, I gave two different children some pompoms. Below, each child has 2. Each child pours their pompoms into “their” side of the drain.
Most of the time, the pompoms fall right through. If they get stuck, just give the machine a little shake.
We recorded the amount of pompoms, on each side, in an addition equation. After sending them all through, we counted the pompoms present in the bottom of the addition machine.
The kids were fascinated by the addition machine. My 4 year old daughter continued playing with the machine for days after we played it together. She loved putting the different amounts in each side of the drain and finding the total at the bottom of the machine. She is exploring the concept of addition through play.
The beauty of the new machine, is that you can flip it over and decompose numbers. I chose two children to help make the machine spit out a number into two different parts. Each child was responsible for one side of the drain. They held their hands underneath the spout, while I gently shook the machine to get the pompoms out.
I chose pompoms, because they seemed to fall out of the machine the best. Here the kids are each holding their part of the whole.
We were able to work with lots of different numbers. It was fun to watch the whole number break apart in different ways. The addition machine offers a great visual and kinesthetic experience with decomposing numbers.
We recorded the different equations as we decomposed each number. It was a lot of fun!
Thanks so much for joining me! I hope that you found these ideas useful and that they help inspire your kids to understand and love math.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 7
- Next Page »
