Montessori math manipulatives from recycled trash: Easy, free DIY math activities

Educational wisdom says hands-on learning works best for kids. Here are hands-on Montessori math activities using homemade Math Their Way type manipulatives from recycled trash. Make easy, free or cheap eco-friendly math lesson plans for learning centers Homeschool parents, keep Montessori math activities on hand for homework help and summer enrichment. Use these math manipulatives to teach place value, addition, subtraction, carrying, borrowing, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percent, story problems, sorting and classifying, even basic algebra. 

Milk rings from recycled trash. Use milk rings in different colors to teach place value. Bundle in groups of ten like Montessori base10 blocks. Teach math operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. 

Twist ties and bread tags from recycled trash: As with milk rings, bundle different colors together to show groups of ten or one hundred. Use like Montessori golden beads. Math Their Way uses milk rings, twist ties and bread tags for place value, sorting, counting and classifying. 

Play dough math manipulatives. Save play dough scraps and give each child a tub. Have students make clay numbers or clay balls to count. Students can also roll clay out and cut with cookie cutters to create shapes, patterns and Montessori style geometric solids. 

Dice math activities: Keep these as car games for math facts practice, homework help or summer enrichment. Play multiplication, division, subtraction and addition games. Shake two die and add, subtract, divide or multiply the two numbers. 

Recycled game pieces. Save old game pieces, bingo or poker chips and game tokens to use for counting, like Montessori Teddy Bear Counters. Play Math Their Way sorting, classifying and organizing math games. Use to demonstrate story problems. Teach ratio, percent and fractions lesson plans. 

Domino math games . Dominoes make great hands-on math manipulatives. Use as car games for homework help and summer enrichment, practicing times tables and math facts. Have students add, subtract or multiply the dots shown on the domino. 

Playing cards. Recycle and repurpose mismatched playing cards as flashcards. Have students play math games like war, only they add, subtract or multiply the cards drawn. These make great car games for homework practice and summer enrichment. 

Stickers for DIY flash cards and math worksheets. Repurpose partially used sheets of stickers to make DIY math flashcards and math problems. Students create math problems by writing numbers on blank stickers. Students can also use picture stickers to show story problems. 

Yarn and straws. Cut straws into equal pieces and have students "string" straw pieces like beads.  Use for counting and patterns, abacus math and fine motor skills practices. 

Beads. String mismatched beads from broken jewelry and use like a DIY abacus, golden beads or base 10 blocks. 

Cardboard. Cut cardboard strips to make rulers for measurement, base 10 bars (like Cuisenaire Rods). Teach place value, geometry, multiplication, division. Make fraction bars and fraction pies from recycled cardboard. Make flashcards and file folder games. Here are some free printables for file folder games. (From ABCs to ACTs blog)

Reading response journal activities for book report alternatives, ELA lesson plans

March is National Reading Month, starting with the NEA's "Read Across America." Looking for ideas to inspire a life-long love of books? Here are reading response activities, interactive ELA (English language arts) lessons, book-based crafts and literature response lessons. Book activities are hands-on, multi-sensory, cross-curricular Montessori-style. Use for interactive Readers Workshop, special education students, reluctant readers, divergent learners and summer reading enrichment.

Reading response journal. Have kids create personalized reading logs, respond to literature and complete book-based activities. Check off ELA activities as completed. Check out my other post for a reading response journal rubric. 

Homemade books. Cut book covers from cereal box. Cover with scrap wrapping paper or wallpaper. Cover with magazine picture collage. Decoupage by painting pictures with watered-down school glue, front and back. Cut lined paper pages (for text) and blank paper (for illustrations). Or use scrap paper and draw in text lines. These make great hands on reading response activities for readers workshop and writers workshop. They are the perfect book report alternative for English language arts lesson plans. 

Book-based promotional materials. Have kids play marketer for their favorite book or author. Make posters, book covers advertising literature. Create 3-D sculptures, models or dioramas based on books. Make book-based merchandise: toys, snacks, food, games. In homeschooling, my 6th grade son designed a "Hobbit Holes" cereal box designed on his favorite J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

Book diorama book report alternative. Create scenes from books using recycled products. Arrange scene in shoe box. Use small dolls (Lego, Fisher-Price, Little Tikes, Polly Pockets) as characters.

Story-reading audio/video presentations. Using cellphones, have students create videos of themselves reading books. Encourage them to create a literature podcasts or vlogs. Upload videos to Youtube or Tik Tok. Reading aloud boosts confidence in ELA subject matter. 

Story-telling. Students read aloud to younger students. Students act out children's books and present to younger or special needs classes. In high school, our oldest daughter acted out a Shel Silverstein's poem "Noise Day" for special education kids. They loved when she skateboarded across the stage! Talk about an interactive reading response activity! 

Book-music connections. Create music playlists based on books. Select metaphorical songs. Kids will love choosing modern songs to represent story themes. Our family saw a production of "Macbeth." The play was set to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," "The Decemberists "This is Why We Fight" and "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant. It really resonated with students and helped them understand and relate to Shakespeare. Plays and music help connect English language art activities to life. 

Help students brainstorm on creative book report alternatives and reading response activites. 

Recycle Bin Crafts for Bored Kids: Homemade Hats for Learning Centers

So this Covid 19 quarantine is getting long, huh? A lot of you parents got thrust into the role of teacher unexpectedly. If you're homeschooling children, maybe you need my teacher mama first aid kit, with quick, easy CHEAP ideas to perk up the school day. 

Just in time for earth Earth Day on April 22, how about recycle bin trash craft? Homeschoolers and teachers, your recycle bin in your best craft supply resource. Let kids repurpose, recycle and reuse household stuff in science projects and eco-friendly crafts.  

Today's recycled trash crafts feature homemade hats for kids! The prototype was developed by our oldest daughter at 20 months old. We kept her toys sorted in recycled 5 pound peanut butter pails. One day, Little Miss emptied one, plopped it on her head, tucked handle under chin and voila—an instant helmet. Then she proceeded to saddle up and ride baby brother like her noble steed! I removed the bucket handle for her safety and her from brother for his. 

But I realized what really cool homemade hats for kids can be made with a little repurpose and reuse. Let kids sort through your recycle bin for plastic ice cream buckets, butter tubs and coffee canisters. Organize by size.  This is a great way to teach preschool sorting, measurement math and Earth Day environmental science. 

Make helmets for hands-on social studies crafts. Repurpose and reuse recycle bin milk jugs as knight's helmets. Remove handle, cut a flap to use as a helmet visor. Cut a piece of plastic and attach with brads to make a visor flap. Wrap in aluminum foil for an armored helmet. Explore the history of helmets and armor with these free printable coat of arms activities from Pinterest. 

Teach STEM lesson plans making homemade hats for robots, soldiers, aliens, animals, astronauts. Make homemade crowns for kings and queens and princesses (cut both ends out to make cylinder shape and decorate. Here are free printable paper crown patterns too. 

Make cone-shaped medieval lady hats for kids by rolling a square of paper in a funnel shape. Trim edge even. Staple recycled crepe paper streamers to hat. Cut decorations from recycle bin stuff. Repurpose and reuse old headgear in cute homemade hats for kids costumes. Repurpose and reuse silk flowers, fabric scraps, ribbons, yarn, buttons, appliques, and faux gems as decorations for your recycled trash crafts. 

Homemade, Recycle Bin Shoe Box Dioramas, Miniatures, Props with Free Printables

Does this scene sound familiar in your home? It's 8 pm and darling daughter is wailing. She forgot to make her school shoebox diorama project due TOMORROW! Been there done that. I wanted to say "tough luck. Take the F" (which she deserved). But being a forgetful, eleventh-hour girl myself, I confess, I empathized. So I bailed her out. The whole family helped. We made an awesome woodland Native American shoebox diorama with recycled trash and household stuff. 

For homemade shoe box dioramas for any content area, all you need is a recycle bin, craft scraps, household junk and a little ingenuity. Here are free printable dollhouse miniatures and free printable habitat diorama backgrounds. I've included free printable scale model building patterns too. 

* Backdrop. Stand shoe box upright inside box lid. Get little-miss-last-minute busy drawing background inside lid (or on plain paper to attach to lid. Our shoebox diorama required an eastern woodland background. For a science habitat diorama, draw a nature scene. For English literature, create a scene from book. One son made a baseball field for a shoebox diorama from "The Chosen." Glue on cotton balls for clouds. Tape tinsel to box top for rain. 

* Buildings. Make 3-D house from smaller box. For 3-D yard or city scene, cut boxes and attach small portions to sides. Make a row of different sizes boxes for city. Cut doors to open. Decorate as house, church, store, office building, school. We made a longhouse from a butter tub. For a tipi, use a paper cone or cup.

* Furniture.  Use dollhouse furniture. Cover small boxes with fabric, wallpaper or wrapping paper for couch, table, bed or chairs. Cut chairs from cardboard. 

* Figures. Use action figures, dolls, Fisher Price or Lego people or Polly Pockets. Or draw face on round-head peg clothespin, pencil or toilet paper tube. Bend pipe cleaners or twist ties into dolls. Add wooden bead for head or paper face. Stuff a glove. Tie with yarn to make arms from outer fingers, legs from middle, head from thumb. Wrap dolls in scrap fabric or colored paper for clothes. Tie. Glue yarn, twine, plastic or paper scraps for hair. 

* Props. Use game pieces, toy sets, doll and action figure accessories, building sets, miniatures. Postage stamps and stickers make rugs, pictures, decorations. Roll paper strip and tie with yarn for scroll or diploma. Tiny yarn balls, beads and marbles make fruit, balls, rocks, cannon balls. Lids, pill bottle covers and tube caps make glasses and dishes. Thimbles and spools are buckets, hay bales, workshop accessories. For our native American shoebox diorama fire, we used broken pencils as logs and orange and red clear plastic for fire. Cut props from cardboard. Staple fabric scraps for curtains, blankets, doors. 

* Landscape. Use small branches for trees. Draw a"garden" on brown fabric or use striped material. Cover little boxes and pill bottles with fabric, grey for rocks and brown for hills, blue for water. Make paper trees and plants from paper tubes or straws. Use plastic toy animals for farm or nature scenes. 

* Military. Use vehicles, weapons and equipment from toy soldiers or GI Joe sets. Make bandages from brown grocery bags colored red (I used this in my Crimean War diorama from "Lady of the Lamp" in 6th grade). Drape material over tripod of sticks for tent. 

Make shoebox dioramas for literature, science, history or social studies crafts. 

Wood Working Activities for Preschool Learning Centers

Safe, Child Size Wood Working Learning Center for Preschool, Elementary School One of my favorite memories in kindergarten was wood shop. Here are preschool lesson plans to do woodworking in learning centers. When I was a kid, we made wood working projects with scrap wood, hammer and nails. Modern preschool learning centers can't use real tools for wood working activities for safety reasons. But some programs such as High/Scope and Montessori preschool teach children adult tasks using child-sized versions of grownup tools. Here are safe, child-sized wood working and woodshop activities for Montessori preschool learning centers

Many preschool learning centers rely on play tools for woodshop or building activities. Plastic toy tools are fun for children to play with, but they really don't teach anything practical life skills about wood working or tool safety. In fact, kids learn that it's okay to be careless when they play with toy tools because they won't get hurts. Montessori preschool woodshop learning centers educate children about safety. Any child-sized wood working learning stations should include safety glasses, work aprons to cover clothing and gloves to prevent splinters. Children should be required to wear available to wear safety equipment. Any child not behaving safely in woodshop learning centers should be removed and lose privileges.

While it mightn't be practical to use power tools, children can use small hand tools. Kids can practice hammer skill using a tack hammer, heavy plastic hammer or small wooden mallet. You can use wood and nails in learning centers with older children. Montessori preschool learning centers may substitute golf tees and recycled Styrofoam. For child-sized woodshop activities, let students pound golf tees into large pieces of Styrofoam to practice hammering. They can attach small chunks with golf tees to simulate nailing wood pieces together. Use recycled Styrofoam pieces old coolers, surfboards, packing materials, clean vegetable trays even packing peanuts.

Practice carving and cutting skills in child-sized woodshop learning centers using plastic knives and bars of soap. Older children can use child-sized saws or hack saws and pieces of balsa wood or pine. This gives students the idea of sawing wood, without the danger of injury. Children should be taught to be as careful as if they were using full-sized tools. themselves. To practice child-sized drilling activities, provide children with a non-powered hand drill, also called a bit and brace and child-sized vise. Children will love putting pieces of wood or Styrofoam in the vise to hold it secure while they work. They can practice opening and closing vise carefully so as not to pinch fingers. If your preschool learning centers have a child-sized plastic work bench, it will have play vise for children to use.

Good resources for realistic child-sized tools are Handy Andy tool kits. These were completely functional child-sized hand tools, made of realistic metal and wood, that came in a metal or wooden tool kit. Handy Andy tool kits are collectibles. Check the Ebay to buy vintage Handy Andy tool sets. 

Animal Classification Bingo Game: Animal sorting game for preschool science Lesson Plans

Interactive Animal Classification and Habitat Bingo Game for Elementary Science Class As a former Montessori teacher and homeschool mom, I'm always looking for hands-on, interactive ways to teach concepts. To explore animal classification, habitats and elementary life science and biology, I made up an animal sorting or bingo game. My children have always owned an impressive collection of stuffed and plastic animals. I put their toy animal collection to use in preschool and elementary science lesson plans. You can easily play this game with a classroom of children, or use in science learning centers. 

First, collect stuffed animals, toy animals, plastic animals and even magazines with pictures of animals. Use your National Geographic, Big Back Yard and Ranger Rick magazines. Next, make a large Bingo board on the floor with masking tape. Each square should be about 8x12 inches large. Make large signs from recycled cardboard for each category on the bingo board.

  If you are studying animal classification, you will make categories labeled:

  MAMMAL

  BIRD

  FISH

  REPTILE

  AMPHIBIAN

  INSECT

  If you are studying habitats or biomes in science, list the biomes you are exploring

  DESERT

  RAINFOREST

  EASTERN WOODLAND

  OCEAN

  WETLAND MARSH

  POND  

  SAVANNAH GRASSLAND

  Play animal bingo in one of several ways. Call out a category and let students come up and select a toy animal to place in one of the boxes under the category. You can also give each child a blank bingo sheet. For each animal in his collection, he writes a small label card. If the animal is called, he places it the correct category. You might also call categories and let him choose which, if any of the animals he has, to put in the category. The last way to play this animal bingo game (and also the most abstract and least hands-on) is to pass out animal word cards and play it that way. My students and children prefer sorting their toy animals. It was pretty cute to see Pooh bear sitting in the WOODLAND and Minnie Mouse in the MAMMAL category. This game works well for group instruction; students learn from each other and great discussion ensues.

Back to School DIY Science Nature Detective Kit

Back to School Science Kickoff Activities: DIY Nature Detective Kit Welcome kids back to school with science exploration kick off activities. Make easy inexpensive individual nature detective kits. 

Looking for summer camp kids' activities? Here's a nature science lesson plan. Make nature detective kits to explore wildlife science concepts. Use this activity to welcome kids back to school. Kids will love playing nature CSI! Homeschooling parents will love this inexpensive, hands-on science lesson.

You will need one of each of these items per student:

--large gallon size zipper bag or cheap carry-all bag to store supplies

--plastic magnifying glass (available in bulk at Great Party, Party America or Oriental Trading)

--cheap one-subject notebook

--pocket folder ($.05 -$.15 each from Walmart, Staples, Target)

--plastic disposable gloves (choose latex free; give each student one pair)

--tweezers or cotton swabs (both would be useful, but use cotton swabs to save money)

--3 or 4 specimen bags (snack size Zip-Loc)

--3-4 larger specimen bags (sandwich size Zip-loc)

--sheet of label stickers

--pen and pencil

-- roll of invisible Scotch tape

--several pieces of yarn or string

--box of crayons ($.25 at back-to-school sales)

--measuring tape (here's a free printable measuring tape)

How to Use Nature Detective Kits:

Make kit assembly part of the lesson. Set out supplies in stations and give students gallon zipper bag and supplies list. This provides experience in counting, sorting and organizing.

Using stickers, kids label notebook: Investigator (name)____________ or Detective (name)____________. Label bags: Exhibit A, B, C or Evidence. As evidence is collected, data and date should be added. For example: 'beetle exoskeleton 9-3-2015.

Go on nature investigation hunts around your neighborhood, school playground or camp. Assign students different items to investigate, native to your area. Students should not keep living specimens, but they might bring a bug box to temporarily house and examine a living critter. Look for evidence of living creatures: bug carcasses, exoskeletons, fallen leaves, feathers, owl pellets, seed pods, rocks, fallen nest, bits of animal fur, bark samples, plants, flowers and rocks.

Have students draw living creatures, homes and habitats: spider's web, bird's nest, wasp's nest, rabbit hole, ant hill, scat (animal droppings). Students should record when and where they observed it. Students shouldn't touch but may observe scat(animal droppings) or dead animal remains.

In class, have children discuss and hypothesize on findings at their level of reasoning. Students might create a natural history museum displaying what they have found. Students can act as young docent guides, explaining discoveries to visitors. This makes a superb activity for parent-teacher conferences, which come early in the year before teachers have had time to collect much student work. It's ideal for summer camp, too. 

DIY Preschool Classroom Learning Centers: Sand and Water Table Ideas

The sand table, also called the water table or sand and water table, is a staple in preschool learning centers,  early childhood special education and kindergarten classrooms. The sand table is a hollowed out table that can be filled with sand and/ or water for interactive play. Here are diy water table ideas for preschool, day care, homeschool, Montessori, kindergarten and any exploratory classroom environment. The water table is an important part learning centers based classrooms. The sand table provides tactile stimulation, interactive hands-on exploration and play therapy for special education and early childhood development. It fosters perceptual and cognitive development in special education students. It helps with special education occupational therapy.

You can purchase a sand table or make homemade one using one of these alternatives: dish pan, recycled plastic laundry soap bucket, shallow plastic covered storage bin, inflatable child's swimming pool, small hard plastic swimming pool or covered Little Tikes Turtle sandbox. I have used all of these as a DIY water table in my teaching career. The nice thing about using a smaller water table is that it's portable. If you choose a covered container for a sand table you can store in when not in use. The Little Tikes Turtle sandbox makes a particularly nice sand table as you can use it indoors and outdoors, as a pool or sandbox.

In the summer weather, take the Turtle sandbox outside for outdoor learning centers. In the cold, wet winter months, bring the sandbox inside and set up in your special education and preschool classroom learning centers. Cover the floor with an old recycled plastic shower curtain or tablecloth for easy clean up. Set a little broom and dust pan nearby so that children can sweep up sand and replace in sand table. This is good housekeeping practice for the house or practical life learning centers.

Preschool Sand Table Lesson Plans for science learning centers

A sand table is a low child-sized table with tubs that can be filled with materials for children to explore. The sand table, also called sand and water table, is the backbone of preschool science activities in learning centers. Early childhood special education classrooms use a sand table, or water table. The sand table provides hands-on,interactive learning, cognitive and perceptual development and tactile stimulation. You can make your own sand table for preschool learning centers. Then use these sand table science activities for early childhood lesson plans.

Water: Fill tubs with water to make a water table. Add floating toys and bath tub toys. Provide different sized containers that encourage children to practice pouring and measuring. Place revolving water wheels in the water table. Add some items that sink and some that float. Use water table for hands-on exploration with the scientific concepts of flotation, water displacement, density and specific gravity. Create a "What Sinks? What Floats?" chart.

Bubbles: Make a simple bubble solution with water, lemon Joy dish soap and glycerin for sturdy

bubbles. Add bubble making toys and every day household gadgets: apple corer, egg beater, whisk,

egg slicer, slotted spoon, fork, cone shaped applesauce mill and any other safe gadgets for water

science activities in learning centers.

Rocks and seashells: Fill your sand table with water and sand. Add rocks, seashells and old (sanitized)

recycled toothbrushes. Children can scrub shells and rocks with toothbrushes. Shells and rocks are

best seen in water, which brings out their hidden depths. Children will love exploring the intricate

beauty of shells and rocks.

Shaving Cream: Allow children to squirt shaving cream into water table tub. Concentrated gel shaving

cream is lots of fun because it foams up as it sprays. Teach safety so kids don't get soap in their eyes.

Exercise caution with aerosol cans. It may be advisable to have an adult add the shaving cream.

Encourage finger painting and drawing in shaving cream. Make sure children wash their hands after

doing science activities in learning centers.

Snow: Fill the sand table with snow and add plastic sand shovels, trowel, ice cream scoop, melon

baller, recycled plastic cups and containers for molding and shaping snow. Have children to wear

gloves and keep several pairs near the water table.

Recycle bin paper scraps: Place scrap paper in sand table tubs and add scissor with patterned edges

and paper punches. Children love to snip, trim, cut and punch paper. Exploring with paper in the sand

table keeps scraps in one place. This exercise provides good practice in cutting skills, scissors skills,

eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.

Dried beans or rice: Add plastic measuring cups, spoons and cups with pour spouts. Teach children

about measurement math. Preschool children can practice counting, sorting while getting good tactile

stimulation in learning centers.

Aquarium Fish tank rocks: Buy bags of multicolored aquarium fish tank rocks (the small kind that line

the bottom of the tank). Fish tank rocks make excellent media for pouring, scooping and measuring.

Aquarium rocks also don't draw insects like beans and rice. Beads work well in the sand table, too,

but can be expensive. Explore other materials for your sand table science activities.

Play Dough Recipe and Easy Geography Landforms Lesson Plans

Here is an easy, hands-on geography lesson plan. Use this lesson plan in the general education classroom, homeschool and special needs classroom. Students of all ages enjoy this interactive geography activity. Begin by mixing up a large batch of play dough. Make the play dough in class and use it for an interactive math measuring lesson plan. Here's an easy play dough recipe:

  1 cup hot water

  

  1 cup white flour

  

  1/4 cup salt

  

  1 teaspoon vegetable oil

  

  2 teaspoons alum or cream of tartar

  

  blue or green food coloring

  Mix with fork or by hand. Adjust recipe for a larger group using a 1:1 ratio for water, flour and salt, a 1:2 ratio for alum or cream of tartar and a 1: one quarter ratio for salt. Measuring and mixing this play dough in class gives students practice in ratios, fractions and measurement. When mixed, separate into two balls. Color one ball blue (or green) for water. Leave one ball plain color for land. Give each student a paper plate, a plastic knife and a zippered bag of blue play dough and another of plain play dough.

Introduce geography terms and definitions used for landforms. Here are free printable landforms coloring pages and geography vocabulary lesson plans. Demonstrate the shape of the landform using play dough or drawing the landform on the overhead projector. Use black pen for land and blue for water. Students will use their blue and white clay to create landforms based on drawings from the board or overhead projector.

Marketing, Business, Math Lesson Plans with Manufacturer's Marketplace

In my never-ending quest to make learning more hands-on and content more approachable, here is a school activity that combines business and money math, writing, design, marketing, public relations and organization: it's called Manufacturer's Marketplace. If you want to engage your students in active learning and create a memorable lesson plan that everyone will enjoy then Manufacturer's Marketplace is the venue for you.

  The concept behind a Manufacturer's Marketplace is quite simple. Each student must design and produce a good or service, which he vends to his school community on a given school day. All that is needed from the teacher's perspective is a time, place and student body. Manufacturer's Marketplace can be held in any grade; in school districts in which children enter middle school in sixth grade, Manufacturer's Marketplace makes a great 'farewell to fifth grade and elementary school' project'.

  To organize Manufacturer's Marketplace with your students or homeschool cooperative, each child should be given a planning sheet to fill out with parents, explaining what good or service he plans to market, his costs involved and his final price per unit. Goods should be made by hand and not purchased. Students should draw a model of their product or service as well as an advertising poster to be hung in the school hallway. Cost per product should be kept under $1.00 per unit so that student's with little pocket money can still purchase something. As a class, students should create a take-home flyer to be sent home with students in all grades, reminding students to bring money for Manufacturer's Marketplace Day.

  On Manufacturer's Marketplace Day, students should set up their product on individual desks or tables. Part of the assignment is to create enough product to supply the number of students in the school. Recommend that students bring at least one unit for every three - five students in the school. An important part of this marketing assignment that students will learn is about supply and demand. Classrooms of students should be given slots of time to browse and shop.

  After Manufacturer's Marketplace Day, the student should calculate profit, any discounts they may have given, any hidden costs incurred as well as any leftover product (to be deducted from the sales as a business liability). Students should also write a brief business report analyzing the project, listing successes as well as changes that they would make next time (bought too little, over-bought, etc.).

Manufacturer's Marketplace is a great math, business, book-keeping, design, entrepreneurial, marketing and social event for your school.

Household Chemistry Activities, kitchen science lesson plans

You can create a complete semester of science lesson plans and chemistry experiments with this shopping list of school supplies from your local pharmacy. Normal science classroom safety precautions should be taken. 

Ph test strips or Litmus paper. Use these to test the base or alkaline vs. acid level in products. Find them with diabetic supplies or in school supply catalogs. Or make your own litmus paper using this guide from Owlcation. You'll need blotting paper available from Amazon. Here is a litmus paper color chart to indicate acid or alkaline (base). 

 

Assorted vitamins and pain relievers:  Give each student a label from different medicines and vitamin bottles. Have them analyze the ingredients for additives, active ingredients, composition, dyes, etc. Students can also evaluate safety, effectiveness, proper usage, etc. Students should compile a medicine safety booklet.

Pill solubility chemistry experiments. Demonstrate how long it takes various pills to dissolve and enter the bloodstream. Students should note findings in science journals. 

Medicines in water source chemistry experiments. Extend pill solubility lesson plans into an ecology lesson by allowing the water to evaporate. Note any remnants of the pills. Explain how flushed pills and medications enter our environment via sewer systems and are spread to rivers, lakes and streams. Via the water cycle, they enter the atmosphere.  

Glycerin science experiments: Glycerin is basically biodiesel fuel. It has a sweet taste and it used to coat pills to make them taste better and easier to swallow. Debate with students the advisability of using an alcohol based product for ingested products. This thick liquid can also be used to demonstrate viscosity of liquids. Demonstrate it by adding it to dish soap and water to make super sturdy bubbles.

Soap chemistry lesson plans. Compare ingredients with commercial soap brands which claim to be pure and gentle. Ivory, Dove, Caress to castile soap and other natural soaps. Compare ingredients in stronger soaps like Irish Spring, Lava and Fels Naphtha. Use ph strips to test acid or alkaline (base). 

Epsom Salts. Here's a complete unit of science activities using epsom salts and other household chemistry supplies. Here are more epsom salts science experiments and craft projects to make crystals, salt, ice, a salt pendulum and more. 

Lotions and creams. Use Ph strips to test acidity levels in these creams. Students will be surprised to discover that products that are supposed to soothe and protect often contain very harsh drying chemicals like petroleum or alcohol. 

Isopropyl Alcohol: Have fun with this non-Newtonian liquid. That's one that doesn't follow the laws of physics. Rubbing alcohol is used to dry up or evaporate other liquids. Hand sanitizer is a great example as it dries quickly. Alcohol is used for swimmer's ear to keep the ear from holding water and to dry it quickly. In fact consumed, beer, wine or liquor alcohol dehydrates the body. 

Hand sanitizer. With Covid 19, we're using more antibacterial hand sanitizer. Demonstrate to students that while it kills bad germs it's also dangerous because it kills all bacteria, even good bacteria. It's also somewhat flammable. 

Iodine. Iodine has disinfectant and anti-puritic capabilities. It is yellow in color, but will turn deep purple in the presence of a starch (bread, potato, etc.). Iodine can be used in numerous science lesson plans on anatomy, biology, nutrition, chemistry and health.

Hydrogen Peroxide. Women used to "bleach" their hair with peroxide. Use to demonstrate whitening properties by pouring on a lock of cut hair. Use peroxide toothpaste to show how it removes stains from teeth. Remove stains from clothing with peroxide. It is the base of oxy cleaners. It will also foam up when applied to a cut, to clean away dirt. Benzoil Peroxide cleans out pores. Hospitals use betadine now instead of peroxide. 

Syringes. Use to demonstrate a vacuum. Teach measurement and use to add drops of liquid. 

Free Printable Reading Response Journal Rubric

Looking for creative ways to teach reading or literature units? Use reading response journals. Here's a template to make student reading response journal. Use for English, ELA (English language arts), literature, reading and writing classes. Use for Readers Workshop (a popular interactive reading group method used in elementary and middle school). Here's the reading response journal format.

Give each student a single subject notebook (wireless notebooks work best). Use the same one for all lesson plans or start a new one for each unit or book genre study. In middle and high school, students should make separate response journals for longer books and more comprehensive literature studies. All written assignments are completed in this notebook (except a final project).

Create a blocked calendar chart, like a bingo card, with 5 columns and 5 rows of squares. Label columns with main components of ELA curriculum: reading, writing, speaking, listening and multisensory response. Label rows with higher order thinking skills (HOTS): Recall/Comprehension, Analysis (structure), Applications (text to text, text-to-life connections), Synthesis (text to new use), Evaluation (thoughts, feelings, opinions, rationale).

Write 25 literature response activities for a month or of assignments. List one assignment per box. Leave room to write in specifics. Photocopy (students complete similar activities for each book or genre studied). Attach to inside front cover of journal.

Tailor activities to state objectives, and student ability. Make it flexible enough for special needs accommodations and student learning styles, Give options. Let students choose 22 out of the 25 activities and do the last three for extra credit if desired. Students may complete assignments in any order. They can double up on slower days and skip assignments on busier days.

Each assignment should take 30 minutes to complete: two paragraphs of writing or 30 minutes of reading, speaking and listening. Assignments are completed in the notebook, labeled according by chosen activity and dated.

Initial completed activities in each box and note the points (in pen). Make notes or correction on the response page. Keep copies of each students chart for your records or keep digital copies. Each activity is worth 30 points: 18 points for content and quality, 7 for mechanics (spelling, punctuation and grammar), 3 for neatness/clarity, 1 for being on time (calculated at the end of the month) and 1 for proper labeling. (name, date, class, period),