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We do a Human Body Unit. The students take a water balloon and they have to use items in our STREAM lab to protect the Brain. This is the BEST activity we do all year!!!

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Balloon Brain: Designing a Helmet

As humans, we thankfully have more going for us than the balloon brains depicted in this video segment adapted from ZOOM. Still, the failed efforts of some of the ZOOM cast members to design adequate protection for their balloon brains illustrates the importance of wearing a proper helmet and protecting your own brain whenever you skate, rollerblade, ski, or ride a bike.

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As humans, we thankfully have more going for us than the balloon brains depicted in this video segment adapted from ZOOM. Still, the failed efforts of some of the ZOOM cast members to design adequate protection for their balloon brains illustrates the importance of wearing a proper helmet and protecting your own brain whenever you skate, rollerblade, ski, or ride a bike.

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Protecting the Brain STREAM Project Collaboration

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Protecting the Brain STREAM Project Collaboration

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Covered Wagon STREAM Project Collaboration

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Covered Wagon STREAM Project Collaboration

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We do a Charlotte's Web unit. The students LOVE to get in groups and make spider webs.

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We just finished reading Charlotte's Web aloud at my house. I was very excited to read it with the girls because I remember it as the highlight of my 2nd grade year. My wonderful (and pretty) redheaded teacher, Miss Baggett, read one chapter aloud to us each day. I remember being completely lost in the story, and also the frustration when the chapter ended and I had to wait until the next day to find out what happened. Do teachers still have time to read aloud to kids in school? I sure hope so.

So in honor of Charlotte and Wilbur, we had a Day-O-Crafts at our house. We made a fuzzy pom pom Charlotte. We had to make the pom poms from yarn, as we were going for authenticity and we had no grey store-bought pom poms. As we were gluing on her googly eyes, we discussed the fact that real spiders have eight eyes, and we agreed that we'd stick with two because
a) two is all I had in the craft box
b) Charlotte with eight eyes of any kind would be realistic but--fatal flaw for a nice girl spider-- scary.

Her legs are two brown pipe cleaners, snipped in half, then folded in half again, with beads stuck on the ends. We bent a tiny bit of each foot back to keep the beads on. Then we just glued the leg pairs to the the bottom of her body and bent them to look spidery. We glued a long piece of white yarn to her tuckus so she could hang. Her smile is a pink piece of yarn. Thing One suggested eyelashes of some kind, but after pondering that for a moment, we decided to skip it.

craft failure in progress

Then we made her a web. Our first attempt was definitely a CraftFail. I let Thing One choose which word she'd like to see in the web. After seeing some similar projects online, I got this bright idea that we could lay down some wax paper and make the web by soaking yarn in glue, laying it down in a web pattern, and letting it dry until it was stiff.

I mixed the glue with some water, which might have been the reason it failed so miserably. Then I had to actually force my girls to touch the gluey yarn, and chided them about being unafraid to get sticky and be brave crafters. They still handled every piece like it was radioactive and covered in boogers. Also they tried to go wash their hands every time they picked up a piece. So the construction phase was a bit tedious and I'm afraid the Spirit of Fun had definitely left the proceedings by the time we were done. It took a long time to dry, and even after I had gone back and reinforced each intersection with full-strength Elmer's, the pieces still did not stick together and the yarn was not very stiff.

Ok. So we rallied our craft mojo and switched to white pipe cleaners, yarn and Fabritac. Have I mentioned before how much I adore Fabritac? I have? Oh. This web was much quicker to construct, and most importantly, took only moments to dry. We love it.

It takes 6 white pipe cleaners (or 'chenille sticks' if you are Martha) that you combine into 3 really long pipe cleaners for the main spokes, and twist together in the middle to hold. Then you just knot a piece of white yarn close to the center, and loop it once around each spoke, pulling it snug as you go (but not too tight). Continue around and around until you have a web. Then you knot it at the end. You can also add a message to it with pipe cleaners and Fabritac like we did. And I also reinforced each loop with a dot of Fabritac so it would stand up to some handling.

On to Wilbur. I spotted this completely cool craft page while googling for Charlotte's Web crafts. The pig version had everything going for it:
a) you make it out of a paper plate (there is a never-ending supply of those at our house)
b) it is held together by a staple, no glue of any kind involved
c) it actually looks like a pig when you are done

The girls had fun coloring the plates and gluing on the buttons. I did the cutting and stapling. Incidently, did you know some crayola colored pencils are really stinky? We found that the bright pink one emits an icky smell when you color hard with it. Which is pretty appropriate for a pig, now that I think about it.

Now Thing One would like to make a Templeton of some kind. While rat crafts are scarce, there are plenty of mouse-themed craft ideas out there, so we could just do one of those only make it a lot fatter and meaner.

As the grand finale to our time with Charlotte, we have rented the cartoon from 1973 to view on movie night for the girls. I hope it is as good as I remember!

P.S. For those of you who were waiting for word on the ruffler cheat sheet, I added a late note to the original post. Thanks again for the link, Mary.

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We just finished reading Charlotte's Web aloud at my house. I was very excited to read it with the girls because I remember it as the highlight of my 2nd grade year. My wonderful (and pretty) redheaded teacher, Miss Baggett, read one chapter aloud to us each day.

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We do a Unit on the Wild Wild West and this is an activity that we like to do with our students to give them an idea of how people use to travel.

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While reading the Little House books, we read about how they travelled in a covered wagon. Though, when it was hot, Pa took the cover off and they drove without a 'roof'. The wagon Pa had must have been big as he needed two horses to pull it. While talking about all of this, we decided to build a covered wagon for ourselves.

While looking at designs for covered wagons, I came across this wagon from All Things Beautiful which is made from cardboard. But, then I found this wagon from The Crafty Classroom made from interlocking paddle pop sticks. As our boys are older, I decided this one was more challenging for them and would be more fun.

We followed these instructions until it came to the wagon cover.

We made the wagon cover a little differently as we didn't have the supplies they suggested.

We cut a rectangle piece from a piece of calico and then folded over the two long sides, sewing it down leaving just enough room to fit a pipe cleaner in. We folded the pipe cleaner to get the shape of the hood. We added some brown shredded paper for hay onto the bottom of the wagon.

We also made some blankets to add to our wagon. For these, we cut out some small rectangles of calico and drew patterns of them with permanent markers.

We also made some bags. To make these, we cut out small rectangle pieces of calico, turned them front side in and sewed all the sides up, leaving a little space at the top so that we could turn the bags inside out and fill them with rice. Then I sewed the top of the bag closed.

We all enjoyed making our covered wagon and would love to see yours if you have a go at making them too.

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Build a Covered Wagon - A Moment in our World

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While reading the Little House books, we read about how they travelled in a covered wagon. Though, when it was hot, Pa took the cover off and they drove without a 'roof'. The wagon Pa had must have been big as he needed two horses to pull it.

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Our first unit we do is about the Seasons.  We like to do this the week we talk about Winter.

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This is our last Winter Olympic Game before the medal's ceremony. We're going to see who will win the Downhill Bobsled Race. The objective: to get your "bobsled" down the track first!
Supplies for the Downhill Bobsled Race:

empty wrapping paper tube

scissors and tape

2 toy cars

paper and marker

First, cut your empty wrapping paper tube in half lengthwise. This will make for 2 long bobsled tracks.

With a small piece of paper and a marker, name the country your racing for and tape it to the top of the toy cars. I'm the USA and my daughter chose China (she loves Kai-lan!)

Get your "bobsleds" up to the top of the track, and let them race!

And the winner is... China, by 3 inches!

We're celebrating the Winter Olympic Games all week. To see more fun and sporty activities, check out theWinter Olympic Games for Kids series. Go for the GOLD!

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Who Will Win the Downhill Bobsled Race? | Make and Takes

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This is our last Winter Olympic Game before the medal's ceremony. We're going to see who will win the Downhill Bobsled Race. The objective: to get your "bobsled" down the track first! Supplies for the Downhill Bobsled Race: empty wrapping... Continue Reading →