How our summer went and our first weeks of school

Summer is over here for us in the Red Snail Classroom.  Classes resumed here for us here in the classroom on the 14 of September.  We are on the pacific coast, so our summers are a bit different than those in the south, or even the east coast.  We tend to take our summer a bit later than most, but that hasn't stopped us from learning throughout.  Here's what we've been up to in the classroom lately, through summer and the start of a new school year.

We learned about kinetic and potential energy.  We also touched on different shapes and learned that there are shapes all around us.  You can print out a shapes coloring page here.

Our Kiwi Crate came in for the month of July and this month the theme was bugs and insects.

We created an insect tic-tac-toe board and some flying dragonflies.  

We learned how far a grasshopper can jump.  We placed tape on the floor of Skylar's body length and had him try to jump that distance.  It was hard, but super fun!

We did some gardening the first week and learned what the difference is in leaves of strawberries.  

We learned about color science.  Part of another Kiwi Crate.

  

This is a great project and can be done without a kit.  Use pudding or jello cups and white napkins.  Place food coloring drops in each cup and watch the color rainbows happen.

Kiwi Crate is amazing when it comes to incorporating lessons into our regular studies.

This one above was about counting money and was to raise money, even large amounts.

The lemonade stand sign was Skylar's favorite.

We also made a fish lantern.

He also put together a sail boat to learn about movement.

Skylar had a lot of fun with these past three kits!  

We also experimented with a solar oven over the summer.  Thanks to all of the dry heat here and the sun shining away on us several days in a row, we were able to cook quite a lot of goodies and play with the solar oven to see how long the sun would cook certain items.

We reviewed our four times tables.  This year we will venture into sixes, sevens, eights and nines. 

We also did a little science studies with Styrofoam and corn packing peanuts. 

He wrote down what he thought would happen, what was happening, and what happened in the end.  

This is a great project to do to stuff the great possibilities of corn-made packing peanuts over Styrofoam ones.  

I saw a good marker organization idea on Pinterest a few weeks ago and decided to implement it into the classroom this year.  It's working great so far.

We put a new star in the classroom too and it's a nice nightlight at night too!

As for Skylar's fifth grade, he took his state test and is now a sixth grader.  We are excited to get our school year started and the first few weeks have all gone so great!  Here's to another great year!

Interested in Kiwi Crate?  Snag one below by clicking the image.

Snow in summer: Sensory Play

Is your child a big fan of snow like mine is?

I remember, when I was a kid, and it would snow, I was always out packing it, rolling it, and laying in it.  I was covered in white wetness before I was forced to come inside to warm up. Apparently, my love of snow was carried over to my child too.  He loves playing in it so much and I literally have to force him to come inside and most of the time it was with tears. During the summer months, it's always a bummer that he can't play the same and enjoy some sensory play during the off months too.  Here's a great way to enjoy the fun of snow, but with less wetness and less tears.

Taking a large tote lid, flipped over, we covered the lid in a mixture of baking soda.  That's it!  Skylar used a lot of his Matchbox cars and some farm equipment items and created a snowy scene.

This is definitely an outside play project.  

Putting the baking soda in a large-holed shaker allows your child to "snow" on his play space.

The more baking soda you use the deeper the "snow" gets.  

Classroom update (Earth Day and what we've been up to lately)

This post is a bit tardy, but better late than never, right?  With Earth Day being on April 22, we decided to touch on an entire Earth week within our normal classroom lessons.  Here is a quick recap of our Earth week.

Earth Day color pages.  You can grab this color page here.

We learned about wind power.  Green Science Windmill Generator by Toysmith (similar to the one below) to see how the wind can power certain electrical components.  

Our Kiwi Crate for the month was based on wind energy too, so it was perfect for the lesson plan we were on at the time.  You can grab one of these crates here!

  

We pushed paint around with the use of "wind power."  (A straw and blowing the paint)

We recorded the wind blowing outside the classroom by making wind barometers. 

Thanks to Kiwi Crate, we were able to incorporate this months' box of wind cars into our lesson.  Skylar made his wind car and tried it out on our windy day.  It also gave us a chance to review what kinetic and potential energy is and what they mean.

We made paper with wildflower seeds in it.  Skylar really enjoyed this craft and it gave him a good idea of where paper actually comes from.

We created some toilet paper/peanut butter/bird seed bird feeders.

PITA sat and watched as we strung cereal and our birdseed/peanut butter rolls in hopes we would drop something.

We planted cucumber seeds for Skylar to observe too.

Excited to see how they will grow each day and see how Skylar observes them growing.  Plus we added them to our outdoor garden once they were a good size to transplant into the ground.

We have also been up to reviewing for our state testing coming up in August.  Skylar is ready for it, but it never hurts to review of few things to keep them fresh in the mind.

A shot of our board lately.  

We love zombies in this house, so we did a study of a hypothetical scenario where zombies attacked.  This booklet can be picked up here.

For a craft, we painted canning jars as sun catchers.

These are just a few of the things we've done in the classroom the last few months.  Skylar is ready for his test in August and I can't wait to share what we have planned for the summer!  

  

If you don't follow my personal blog (South North South), you missed when we purchased a new school desk for the classroom.  The desk is from World Market (which I love their items so much) and we picked it up for less than $200.  It's a secretary desk and works perfect in our little space.