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Bridget's video from the maker faire.... Lots of cool ideas

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Bridget's video from the maker faire.... Lots of cool ideas

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Uploaded by Bridget DeMarse on 2015-09-30.

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Making your own DIY Lip Gloss is easy and fun!

For more pretty and delicious be sure to follow me on Instagram.

Last week I had Activity Day Girls. For those of you new to the blog this is a group of 8 - 12 year old girls who I get to play with twice a month. It is my calling or job at church. We have lots of fun together but in addition to having fun my co-leader and I always try to teach them something.

Last week we decided to make lip gloss. In order to teach them something valuable at the same time we had a little lesson on gossip. My co-leader put a great lesson together. We started with a game of telephone. You know that game. You whisper something in someones ear and they whisper in in the next person's ear and by the time it gets to the end of the line what was originally whispered has been changed and is nothing like it started out as. We told the girls that is what happens with gossip. It starts out as one thing and then as it gets passed from person to person it gets changed into something else. Usually something untrue and unkind.

For another object lesson we went outside into the garden and poured glitter into one of the girl's hands - she then had to try to pass all of it to the next person without losing a single piece. Obviously glitter was sticking to hands and scattering to the floor. It was impossible to retrieve it all. We pointed out to the girls that gossip is often like the glitter. We believe we can control it, but once it leaves our mouths we can no longer choose how the information is handled. Similar to glitter, once gossip is released, it spreads and is virtually impossible to retrieve.

After our lesson on gossip we made DIY Lip Gloss so that they could always have sweet lips that remember to only speak kind words.

We made our lip gloss out of coconut oil and un-petroleum jelly . Both can be purchased at Whole Foods or other natural food stores. For coloring and flavoring I tried two different things. Crystal Light drink mix and for a more natural choice (no artificial sweetener) I used Emergen-C .

The difference between the two different drink mixes is with the Emergen-C you pretty much got the same color with every flavor - there wasn't much difference in color. With the Crystal Light you got variations in color depending on the flavor you used.

Step One: Place about 1 tsp of coconut oil and 1 tsp of un-petroleum jelly in a microwavable bowl. The amounts will depend on the size of the container you are putting it in. Place in microwave for about 60 seconds or until oil and jelly is melted.

Step Two: Place powdered drink mix into the melted oil (about 1/2 tsp - 1 tsp. or amount needed to get desired color) Stir and stir until the mix dissolves. It may not totally dissolve and that is o.k. because as it sits in the container will dissolve some more.

Step Three: After it is pretty much dissolved pour it into your container. I purchased our lip gloss containers at the craft store in the bead section. They are designed to hold beads.

Then just let the lip gloss set up.

The girls loved the project and the lesson. Each girl went home with two pots of lip gloss and this book mark I found here to remind them to always speak kind words.

For other fun Activity Day ideas check out these:

PVC Pipe Bow & Arrows - Bath Salts - Pom Pom Bookmark s

Enjoy!

Leigh Anne

You can also visit me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram.

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DIY Lip Gloss and a lesson on Gossip}Activity Day Idea

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Making your own DIY Lip Gloss is easy and fun! For more pretty and delicious be sure to follow me on Instagram. Last week I had Activity Day Girls. For those of you new to the blog this is a group of 8 - 12 year old girls who I get to play with twice a month.

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Here's a fun winter activity for kids - make some snow slime! We love making slime with liquid starch and glue, and this snow slime variation has a neat texture and really looks like snow.
The boys went through our Safari Toob animals to find all of the arctic ones so that they could play with them in the slime. Jonathan had a great time making foot prints in the snow! The blue plastic tray is something that I picked up at Michael's for use with kinetic sand, and it works really well for slime too.

Snow slime is so fun to squish and stretch!
Here's how to make it!
(Amazon affiliate links)

You will need:

I bought the artificial snow at Hobby Lobby in the Christmas crafts section. It's very light weight and shimmery.

I stirred about 1/4 of the bag of snow into 1/2 cup of white glue. I'm not sure if it's best to add the snow to the glue, or to add the snow to the completed slime. I ended up adding quite a bit more snow to the finished slime, and it worked out great. So maybe it's not necessary to stir it in? Oh well, it won't hurt anything!

Then I stirred in 1/2 cup of liquid starch. Stir and then mix with your hands. The mixture should form slime pretty quickly. If your slime sticks to your hands, add a little more starch. If it's too stringy and won't hold together, knead in a little more glue.

After mixing up the slime, I decided that it needed more snow in it. I ended up using about 3/4 of the bag total.
This is a great activity for a winter snow day!

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Here's a fun winter activity for kids - make some snow slime! We love making slime with liquid starch and glue, and this snow slime variation has a neat texture and really looks like snow. The boys went through our Safari Toob animals to find all of the arctic ones so that they could play with them in the slime.

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through making

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I am a teacher. If you had walked into my classroom a few weeks ago, you may have thought you were witnessing some sort of student uprising. Students were dashing around the room, furniture was overturned, trash was littering the tables and floor, and paper wads were being launched from a large slingshot with surprising speed and accuracy. However, with further observation you would have noticed smiles of happiness on the faces of the students, and a look of loving pride on the face of the teacher. Again, that's me, the teacher.

Let me explain. I'm a special education teacher for "at-risk" high school students. Some students have been tagged as being at-risk for dropping out, or running into major discipline problems that may interfere with earning credits for graduation. Some of my students have difficult home lives that make it challenging to attend school regularly, much less care about school when they do make it. Depression, anxiety, ADHD/ADD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and physical health challenges all find their way into my class. Each of my students is "at-risk" due to different circumstances, but on any given day you will find short fuses and explosive tempers sparking up in my classroom. All in all, I have some of the least academically engaged students in the school, and I love the challenge of tricking them into learning while also trying to teach them to love to learn (or at least sort of liking it ... a little bit ... sometimes ... please kids).

So what was happening the day I let my students make a slingshot and turn the classroom into a scene of chaos? Why would I allow students with behavioral problems to make what could be considered a weapon? Well, basically, I had given my students an opportunity to make. It started off with me presenting a very simple idea, and like magic, my students embraced the opportunity.

My class' slingshot started with a student who was avoiding doing his work. He turned a chair over on a table, and stretched an exercise band across two of the legs. The band was loud and strong, and a pencil ended up being launched at a wall, splintering into many pieces. After destroying the pencil, the work-avoiding student looked at me, expecting my look of disapproval. He got it, but I also saw an opportunity to engage this student. "Here, check this out," I said as I went to my computer to pull up the picture of something I saw at Maker Faire Bay Area. The slingshot in the display by the Community Science Workshop Network included a board as the base, two PVC pipes, a few rubber bands and a small plastic cup. "Let me go get some rubber bands and a cup. Maybe we can make something less dangerous." Other students were now interested as they looked at the picture.

Making and playing happened for the next hour as we constructed two more chair slingshots, and in case you don't already know, beautiful things can happen as you engage in a making adventure. For example, my students worked on social skills and teamwork (which are important lessons in my class). They shared their ideas with each other, and they all got along wonderfully - a rare occurrence - while working on their common goal of getting to launch paper wads at the wall. My students even accepted my basic rules and guidelines with no protesting. For instance, I asked that they not launch the slingshots toward anyone, and that they not launch anything that could chip the paint off the cinder block wall.

My students also had an opportunity to learn about powering through frustration to finish a task. It's all too common for my students to shut down and give up when things get difficult, but I watched as they thought on their feet and solved problems to make the slingshot work. One of my students was frustrated at the lack of accuracy of the slingshot, so he set off to improve on the design. We only had one plastic cup to work with, so he grabbed a soda can left behind by another student and went to work. He ended up making an impressive slingshot that became the showcase of the day.

With pride, my students brought it to show to another teacher and show it off to another class. One student even bragged about it on his Facebook status. I even snuck in some science terms like density and trajectory while my students experimented with different techniques of building and using the slingshots. Imagine where a physics teacher could have taken this lesson, but my focus was on social skills such as task completion, teamwork, and creative problem solving.

The school day ended with all of the day's assignments complete, and the students even cleaned up the mess without me needing to ask. I'm fortunate enough to have the type of class where I can take advantage of impromptu opportunities and provide my students with making activities that allow them to learn without the academic structure required in most classrooms. In fact, my class is called Opportunities, and as I grow as a teacher I plan on continuing to incorporate making as one of the many opportunities provided in my class.

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Engaging the Reluctant Learner Through Making | Make:

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I am a teacher. If you had walked into my classroom a few weeks ago, you may have thought you were witnessing some sort of student uprising. Students were dashing around the room, furniture was overturned, trash was littering the tables and floor, and paper wads were being launched from a large slingshot with surprising speed and accuracy.

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for kids

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Activities for ages 4 and up.

STEM activities (Science Technology Engineering and Math) are all the buzz in education. Kids love finding out how things work through fun, hands-on projects and teachers love knowing that they're preparing students for their techy future.

These 40 kid-approved STEM activities are the perfect complement to our super popular Endless STEM Challenge Bundle!

Science Projects

We love science so it's hard to pick a favorite in this first category of STEM activities.

Make exploding pop rockets.

Pull together an easy water drop race. // What We Do All Day

Create fireworks in a jar. // I Can Teach My Child

Blow up a batch of magic balloons.

Create a water cycle in a bag.

Make ordinary flowers glow in the dark. // Fun at Home with Kids

Whip up some magic dancing raisins. // Coffee Cups and Crayons

And speaking of dancing, make gummy worms boogy.

Test out a simple recipe for Oobleck. // STEM Mom

Turn your name into crystals. Pour a rainbow in a jar.

Whip up a batch of Magic Aqua Sand. // Paging Fun Mums

Make pipe cleaners mysteriously float.

Use just a couple common household ingredients to pour hot ice. Build a giant sand volcano. // Growing a Jeweled Rose

Grow plants from seeds.

Make clouds in the kitchen. // Modern Parents Messy Kids

Create some magnetic slime. // Frugal Fun 4 Boys

Technology

Using STEM activities to prepare kids for the future requires that they experience technology too.
Teach kids about computer coding.
Study the stars with the Star Walk app.

Build globby structures in World of Goo.

Practice strategy by playing Blokus.

Explore pictures and data from NASA missions.

Design treehouses to ferris wheels with Simple Physics.

Practice math facts with Operation Math - a fast paced drill game.

Engineering

Engineering projects are also an important piece of STEM activities for kids!

Solve LEGO challenge cards. // The STEM Laboratory
Build famous landmarks.
Make junk boats.

Design straw bridges.

Race K'nex cars.

Create straw roller coasters. // Frugal Fun for Boys

Cut out this free balancing robot. // Buggy and Buddy

Build simple {and FAST!} spinning tops. // I Can Teach My Child

Print free activity cards and throw together a portable LEGO kit. // Fun at Home with Kids

Make a bottle water fountain. // Learn with Play at Home

Math

To help kids build a solid foundation of math skills, STEM activities also incorporate math.

Go on a shape hunt.

Play math fact dominoes.

Play a fun subtraction game. // Buggy and Buddy

Print and play Place Value Concentration.

Practice math facts with a flower game. // Nurturestore

Build shapes out of marshmallows and pretzels.

Play a fun round of Loose Tooth Subtraction. // Heidi Songs

Make a batch of Number Trail Mix.

Find different ways to make the numbers 3-10.

Teach kids doubles {3+3, 4+4, 5+5...} with a helpful flip chart. // Mrs. T's First Grade Class

Cut apart some hundred chart puzzles.

Practice addition with some free write and wipe cards. // The STEM Laboratory

Play a round of Catapult Addition. // Relentlessly Fun Deceptively Educational

Grab a ball for Add It Up! // Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

And finally, work on addition AND shapes at the same time with these playful roll and cover pattern block mats.

Endless STEM Challenges

Download our never ending bundle of STEM challenges for kids in our shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers!

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40 STEM Activities for Kids - Playdough To Plato

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Activities for ages 4 and up. STEM activities (Science Technology Engineering and Math) are all the buzz in education. Kids love finding out how things work through fun, hands-on projects and teachers love knowing that they're preparing students for their techy future.