bottle cap spelling

items needed:
bottle caps
construction paper or old magazines
scissors
pen/pencil

After researching ideas to use with some of the bottle caps I have saved up I decided to use some of them to help my daughter with spelling and words.

Painted Lady Butterfly Kits

A few weeks ago I bought a butterfly kit for my daughter.  A few of her friends have had them, so she really wanted one.  Plus it's a great way to teach and show her the process of metamorphosis.

I bought the Insect Lore Butterfly garden and then sent in for the caterpillars.  They arrived in the mail in less than a weeks time. 

My daughter checked the caterpillars everyday and was so excited to see them change into chrysalids.  We really wanted to keep them around as pets for a few days but my husband thought it would be better to let them go.  :(

lines

This is a fun activity to teach students about different lines.  Have them color a piece of paper using the colors of the rainbow (or paint or use markers) and then have them cut the paper using wavy lines, straight lines, zig zag lines, etc.
 

making suds

This is a fun outdoor activity for kids and a science experiment all in one.

Materials needed:
Tall plastic cup or any other tall container
liquid dish detergent
1/2  cup warm water
1 tsp. Baking soda
Citric acid
Measuring cups

1. Mix three big squirts of the liquid dish detergent, 1/2 cup warm water, and one teaspoon of baking soda in the plastic container.  
2.  Sprinkle in couple pinches of the citric acid into the solution.  
3.  Watch the suds form.

note:  I bought my citric acid from amazon.com.  It's a rather large bag of it, but I do use it when I am making my own dishwasher detergent.

To integrate this into a science experiment discuss with the children what a base and an acid is.  The suds occur because the baking soda is a base and when you add the acid (citric acid), it produces carbonic acid.  The carbonic acid breaks down the water and carbon dioxide as a gas and the gas launches the bubbles.  Can you think of other household acid and bases?

Painted Rocks

I love pointing out beautiful things in the environment to my daughter.  One of the beautiful things I pointed out recently was how rocks really show their colors when they are wet.  So one morning we went out to the back porch and started looking at rocks and getting them wet.  To go a little further I had my daughter sort the rocks based on color.  Sorting by color, size, texture is a concept that should be worked on prior to kindergarten.  This is a fun, easy, cheap educational activity to do with any young child.   My daughter is now a avid rock collector.