Easter Egg Craft

 "Stain Glass" Easter Eggs is a fun craft for all ages.

This craft requires:

1. tissue paper 

2. clear contact paper 

3. scissors

4. 1 sheet of construction paper (per child) for the egg outline.

I found the contact paper and the tissue paper at the $0.99 Store.

So this craft cost $2. I like that kind of craft. 

I have lots left over that can be used for future crafts too.

Instructions:
1. Fold your construction paper the long way (We call it the Hot Dog way). I used black, but any color would be fine.

2. Cut out an egg shape and cut out the center leaving just an outline of an egg (see the black outlines in the picture above).

3. Cut up your colored tissue paper into small manageable pieces. I found smaller pieces are better for older kids who have more patience, but you know your kid (s). Cut accordingly. I used some scrapbook scissors for fancy cut-outs.

4. Cut a piece of clear contact paper and remove the paper backing. This gives you a piece of sticky clear paper. Place it on the table with sticky side up. Place your egg cut out on the sticky part.

5. Let the kids put the cut up tissue paper on the contact paper until they are satisfied.

6. Cut another piece of contact paper and remove the paper backing. Place the sticky side to the decorated piece of your "eggs." This is like laminating the eggs. I cut out around the eggs to remove some of the extra tissue paper that got stuck.

7. Hang your creation and enjoy it!

~Possum

English Essay Lapbook

 I did a favor for a friend and made her a lapbook for

language arts (English). This is more for the high school,

possibly college level writer. Even I learned a thing

 or two making this. I love it when that happens.

 Here is the inside.

I have a more detailed list of what each mini book is below.

 Another view of the inside. 

So, here is the breakdown of the lapbook:

1. 4 Types of Essays: Narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. Each tab had a little explanation about that type of essay.

2.  Run-on Sentence cards: I made cards with run-on sentences and stuck them back to back and laminated them. They can be corrected using a white board marker many times for practice. I also made "correcting cards" to help understand how to correct a run-on sentence.

3-5: I made an outline for a 5 paragraph essay with

specifics on how to break it down into manageable pieces.

3. Introduction paragraph: This is broken down into three parts: Hook, Body, and Thesis Sentence.

Hook: Something catchy that makes your audience

pay attention to your topic. This is usually just one sentence.

Body: Review the main reasons why your topic is important and

which will be reviewed in the body of the paper. You can also

give necessary background. This is usually 2-4 sentences.

Thesis Sentence: the controlling statement that serves as

the backbone of the paper. Try to make this just one sentence

4. Body (3 paragraphs): This section is to help move the essay along and give more information. Each paragraph should be written using the S. E. E. method.

Statement: A topic sentence states a paragraph’s main

idea. When answering a question or responding to a prompt,

make your answer or response part of your statement.

Examples: Also known as supporting sentences, strongly

support the topic sentence and form the support every

paragraph needs to have. Whenever possible, directly cite a

published source to provide the necessary examples to support

your paragraph’s topic sentence or statement.

Explanation: Closing sentences which bring your paragraph

to a logical conclusion by clearly explaining how the cited

examples strongly support and prove the topic sentence.

5. Conclusion: This is broken up into three sections: Restate thesis, summation, and concluding sentence.

Restate thesis: Restate your original thesis to remind

the reader of where you started and the point of this essay.

Summation: Tell the reader what they should have

learned in this essay, why it is significant, and how

it relates to the real world.

Concluding sentence: The is the final thought. This is

a chance to leave the reader with something to think about.

Close-up of the middle blue match-books.

6. You may be noticing that the center of the lapbook looks like I just duplicated everything. You would be kind-of right. The left side has the explanations and the right side has empty lines with one word or letter to help prompt the writer. This is meant to be a worksheet to help write one essay.

7. 4 Kinds of Sentences: Statement, questions, command, exclamation. After reading online, these names are the easy version with the real names being fancy words that I will never repeat. So, I stuck with things I would understand and called them the easy names.

Statement: A Statement sentences tells about something.

It ends with a period.

Example: She ate pizza for lunch.

Question: A questions asks something.

It ends with a question mark.

Example: How are you?

Command: A command tells someone to do something.

It ends with a period.

Example: Eat all your vegetables.

Exclamation: An exclamation shows strong feeling.

It ends with an exclamation point.

Example: I just won 100 dollars!

8. A fun pencil-shaped book for punctuation. Don't be fooled into thinking this book will teach you about punctuation, but rather it is a fun add-in. It has examples of sentences that have different punctuation that change the meaning. Please see the example above. Punctuation can save lives! he he

So that is my attempt at teaching language arts. Hopefully, by the time my kids get that age, I will get better at this.

~Possum

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

So, Dr. Seuss had a birthday on March 2nd. We are celebrating all week long just because Dr. Seuss is that cool. I drew a giant Cat in the Hat for my daughter's classroom bulletin board. I thought I would share because I'm proud of it.

Join us in a week of fun activities celebrating the craziness and wonderfulness of Dr. Seuss.

Sight word practice

I made a sight word game with sight words I found at the Dollar Store. I taped the words in a path around the room.

We read through them many times before we started playing the game. The point is to get to read the words well and fast enough that they are memorized. We started at the starting point and walked the "path" until the end.

 I tried to make the first words make a sentence, but after that it just sounds like babble.

I made the last word be "Stop." 

Here's our rules:

If you miss a word, you start over.

You have 1 minute to read them all

We are still working on it.

~Possum

**Update: This activity is a great way to practice sight words, but didn't work for us. After two days on the floor, half the words were eaten or chewed by little brother. He dominates the floor right now and eats everything he can get into his mouth. We ended up pulling all the words up. I need another way to do this instead. Any ideas?

Butterfly Garden: Live caterpillars that change into butterflies

We bought a Butterfly Garden from Insect Lore off Amazon.

After we received the box, we ordered the live caterpillars.

I thought I would share our experience with pictures.

 These are the caterpillars on arrival and the day

before they started making chrysalises.

Take a note if you do this, read the instructions and

don't put the caterpillars in direct sunlight. They die.

We received 5 caterpillars and only had 4 survive.

Don't tell my kids.

 The caterpillars didn't form their chrysalises all on one day.

It took about 3 days for all of them to make their chrysalises.

According to the order they formed their chrysalises,

they all hatched. It took about 3 days for them all to hatch. 

We got extremely lucky in that we caught a butterfly just

as it was coming out. My son sat and watched the miracle of this

tiny bug crawl out all slimy and spread out its wings.

One of the last butterflies to hatch didn't get its wings out

all the way before it dried. So, it had a deformed wing

that was curled outward. We were worried about it,

but it flew just fine and took off when we let them go.

I admit that it is pretty cool to watch.

About 2 days after all the butterflies hatched,

we set them free in a good grassy, flowery place. 

My son tried to chase them. They are too fast.

Definitely a great thing to do with your kids. 

I recommend this as a fun summer activity.

~Possum

Butterfly Unit

To continue with the Butterfly lapbooks, here are some fun activities to do with your butterfly unit.

 Butterfly Symmetry game.

I take no credit for this except I made my own set.

I got this from All Our Days blog. 

She included a free printable that makes this so easy.

Here is the Butterfly Symmetry blog post.

All you have to do is print, cut out felt pieces, and you have your own set.

She also has a toddler version of this if this is too hard for your little one.

 Water color caterpillar.

I took a plastic cup and dipped it in black paint to make the original circles.

I did this the day before and let it dry.

Then, the kids colored with water colors in each circle. 

This is a great opportunity to teach about primary colors and secondary colors.

 Life cycle of a butterfly. 

I just cut out a large circle and let the kids glue on the parts.

For the parts: I have white small beans as eggs.

I have Fusilli pasta for the caterpillar (I had to look that pasta name up.).

I used acorns for the Chrysalis (or cocoon).

I have farfalle pasta for the butterflies.

 I found wooden butterfly cut outs at the Dollar Store.

I hot glued a Popsicle stick on one side to make puppets.

We colored the butterflies with markers, but you could paint too.

We stuck these outside in the garden once they were done.

 Coffee Filter butterflies.
For further pictures and instructions go HERE.

You can color the filters with washable markers and

then get them a little wet to blur the colors. 

You could watercolor them or even paint them. 

Once colored and dried, take the wooden

clothespin and bunch the filter in the middle. 

Take the pipe cleaners and make antenna. 

You could attach goggly-eyes to the clothespins too.

I forgot to take pictures of the completed project.

Beaded pipe cleaner caterpillars.

I stuck a bead on the end and twisted the pipe cleaner around it.

Then I gave the kids each a box of beads to make a caterpillar.

This is a great way to practice patterns, colors, even shapes.

The beads stay on pretty well and this would be great for younger kids too.

Have fun with butterflies!

~Possum