Shooting Stars

I saw this shooting star party favor for sale here and thought it would be pretty easy to make on our own for Space week. Each child picked one color of tissue paper and I drew lines for them to cut. I was just winging it, hoping it would work, so I only had one child do it at first.

 

The cutting took awhile. It was easy to cut because it was tissue paper, but it was still a lot of cuts. I had the kids try it themselves first, then I helped out. For the most part, they did one side and I did the other three.

I used the square pieces that were cut off the corners for added material in the middle. I took super balls (bouncy balls, rubber balls, whatever you might call them) from our prize bucket and put them in the middle as well.

Then I wrapped up the ball with all the tissue paper and put a rubber band around it.

Then came the test. Throwing it. I was worried it would bounce all over the place, but it flew beautifully and landed just once with a nice thud. After a few tests, we decided to take them outside! At first, the kids just threw them straight up in the air.

But then they got the hang of it and threw them up and over.

It was quite difficult to get a picture of them! My inspiration had ribbons coming off of them as well, but I was trying to use what I already had on hand.  We lost a few "tails" along the way, but the extra layers of tissue paper around the balls worked well and we didn't have any rips there. I tried making one with two colors of tissue paper,

but it almost seemed too heavy and didn't fly as well. Although it did look pretty cool.



Giant Space Walk Game

I've been having trouble posting this week. Nothing to do with my computer or anything, but I just don't have much free time in the evenings anymore. Our theme this week is Space, and I have a bunch of crafts to share with you, but first I want to show you a game I made many, many years ago.

I made our circle time rug into a game board. It was the perfect shape for it, but I now realize the rug is a bit distracting. A solid background would have been better for pictures. I printed all the images out and laminated them. I taped them to the rug for a little more support. You start off at the Shuttle Launch Pad.

We rolled big foam dice to find out where we'd go next. The first two spaces were Mercury and a galaxy. The galaxy space says, "Float through space until you land on Mars -- 3 spaces."

Then there was Venus and a small sun.

If you land on the small sun, you have to go in the middle where there is a bigger sun and warm up.

The kids don't lose a turn, they just sit on the sun until their next turn. Then there is Mars and an asteroid (since the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter).

The asteroid space says, "Knocked off course by asteroid. Go back to Venus -- 3 spaces." Next up is Jupiter and another shuttle launch.

If you land on the shuttle launch, you get a free trip to Neptune and can go ahead 5 spaces! Then there is Saturn,

and a black hole.

Uh-oh. The black hole is the worst space to land on. It says, "Sucked into black hole - go to Shuttle Launch." So you would have to go all the way back to the beginning.
Then comes Uranus and another small sun.

And Neptune and a comet.

The comet space says, "Ride comet's tail to Earth's Moon -- ahead 3 spaces." Then there is little dwarf planet Pluto and an astrodog.

When I first made this game, Pluto was still considered a planet. But I couldn't take it out of my game because it would mess up the game board, so I kept it in. If you land on the astrodog, you need to go back to Pluto because you forgot him there! And finally there is the Moon and Earth, which is the last space.

The kids really enjoyed the game and we played it several times. They loved being the game "pieces" and using big dice!

All of the pictures were found through a google image search and, except for the black hole and the astrodog, are real images. You wouldn't have to make it this long or this big if you didn't want to, but it sure is more fun this way!
OK, I hope to be back this weekend to share our space crafts with you!

Crafty S'mores

Here's a quick craft to go along with a camping theme! You just need two shades of brown craft foam, a cotton ball and a brown permanent marker.

I cut out squares from light brown craft foam (I used a post-it note as my template) and added some dots and a dotted line with a light brown sharpie so it would resemble a graham cracker. Then I cut out smaller rectangles from the dark brown craft foam. First you put some glue on one cracker (the back side without the dots).

Add your chocolate.

Put some glue on the chocolate and add your marshmallow.

Feel free to pull apart your cotton ball a little so it looks like a melted marshmallow.

Add one more drop of glue and place your last cracker on top.

And you have a yummy s'more!

My first year teaching, I actually brought in one of those s'more makers and the kids roasted marshmallows. I realized later how something bad could have happened (and that it was probably against the rules!), so I haven't done it since. But it was pretty cool to make real s'mores in the classroom! In later years we've made them in the oven, but it's just not as fun.

Slithering Snakes

OK, so they don't really slither, but they are still cool!

I've had that cutie sitting in one of my drawers for years. I made it long ago when I did a unit on snakes. I've always wanted to make them again with another class, but I could never fit it into a theme. Since this is my last week with my kids, I thought it would be the perfect time to do it. It doesn't really go with this week's camping theme, but if you are camping in the woods, you might come across a snake, right? So I bought some large pipe cleaners at Michaels. They come in a box of 50 for $9.99, but if you use a coupon it's not so bad. I started by bending one end of the pipe cleaner into a little oval shape and secured it by twisting it. I did this to all of them so the kids wouldn't have to do it, but I'm sure they were capable.

The kids chose 2 colors of pipe cleaners and twisted the oval parts together to form the head of the snake.

Then they twisted the rest of the pipe cleaners together.

They were actually very good at this. I thought they would be all loose, but they did a great job at keeping them tight. I cut out forked tongues from construction paper and the kids dipped the end into craft glue and stuck it to the inside of the mouth.

Then they added a couple wiggle eyes to the top part of the head.

I loved how they looked as I piled them up to dry!

Oh, how the kids had fun with them when they were dry! You can pose them in any position.

So cute, right? And I even used a few of the pipe cleaners to make fish for our camping site in dramatic play!

Fun Fact: When a snake's mouth is full, it has to extend its trachea out of its mouth in order to keep breathing.

Little Campfires

We're on a camping trip this week -- in our imaginations, that is. I set up a tent in our room (you can see last year's here) and we even told ghost stories around a fake campfire! Today's craft was a little tissue paper campfire. I wanted it to be a night time fire, so we used a half sheet of black paper. For the logs, I cut a bunch of slits in brown paper and then cut them off.

So simple. The kids glued a few logs on their paper.

For the fire we used orange and yellow tissue paper squares. They squished them up, dipped them in glue and put them on the paper.

Then they could add stars with a white crayon or use some star stickers I had.

They turned out very cute!

Torn Paper Art

I want to share something with you quick. We did a project with scrap paper where the kids tore up pieces and made a work of art.

Most of the kids made a design.

But this one boy made a picture of himself watering a vegetable garden!

I loved it! It's the only reason why I'm blogging about this project -- to show it off. Sometimes I'm in awe of the creativity these little sweeties have!