Let me start by confessing that when I said last Tuesday I'd be back again this week to share some more YouTube clips, I wasn't actually that confident that I would be... But here I am! Gold star for me. :) Today's clips are brain breaks - those that you can use at any time of your day to allow your kidlets to get their wiggles out. I like to have brain breaks that the children can copy or follow along with - saves those flailing dance moves and break dancing on the floor that do nothing other than hype the kids up. (Is it just me or do some kids have no other freestyle dance moves than mad waving and jumping?) Just a reminder - always watch a clip before you show it to your class, and check the sidebar etc. for inappropriate ads and images, just in case! First up is our current favourite, Dooby Wop the Robot Dance! Who doesn't love Sid the sloth? Try his Sid Shuffle! This one's great for little ones - The Hokey Pokey is an oldie but a goodie! Hi 5 is perfect for the classroom because of their G-rated dance moves. :) Move Your Body gets the kids up and wiggling. If your class likes this one, there's a heap more from Hi 5 you can try. OK, I know I said I like to have a clip that the kids can follow - but this one is freestyle! You will be the 'Best Teacher Ever' if you work this one into your playlist - it's definitely the flavour of the month (year?). Before I go I'll mention something that I'm positive is already on your radar: TpT is holding a SALE this Thursday and Friday (the 27th and 28th) to celebrate being 3 million sellers strong! My store along with many others will be 20% off during this time. Enter the code TPT3 when you checkout to grab and extra discount. Happy dancing! Lauren

Geocaching For Kids ~ A wonderful Homeschool Activity

A fun self-esteem activity to help children explore all the things they love and appreciate about who they are. In this self-esteem activity, kids get to complete sentence stems to help them identify things they are good at and positive qualities they like about themselves.

Have you seen those floating ball toys where you blow into one end and the ball "magically" floats above in place? Here's a way to create your own!

Try these fun and educational activities for kids. Make a volcano, a tornado, glitter jars (like snow globes), giant bubbles, dry ice bubbles, and more.

These attention activities cover various types of attention: divided attention, sustained attention, selective attention and more.

I had to stop by to quickly share an activity that I have been wanting to play with my kidlets for ages and finally got around to planning f...

Phew! I am one tired teacher! Our first week of Term 3 is almost over and my kidlets have worked super hard learning new concepts and pra...

Put your detective-in-training on the case with this secret-message activity.

Learn how to build a catapult! This STEM activity is so fun for kids and needs just a few simple supplies! Plus learn history in the process.

These eight videos about poverty are powerful tools for helping children global poverty, as well as poverty in the United States. Discussion questions are included for each video.

Origami is a fun, mess-free activity for kids that builds spatial awareness and provides a foundation for geometry.

Explore the science of sound with kids! How to make a spinning noise maker and experiment to see how the sound changes.

Study the respiratory system and determine your lung capacity and what might affect it. Students will calculate and make conclusions.

Children can explore the world with easy, hands on Geology activities including with an erupting volcano, land form diorama, or Earth Layers Model!

Social Emotional Workshop offers practical tools for social emotional learning and counseling.

Social Emotional Workshop offers practical tools for social emotional learning and counseling.

Use the Pokemon craze to your advantage. Try these incredibly fun and educational Pokemon activities with you kids. You gotta make try 'em all!

There is no escaping that Chronic Illness goes hand in hand with grief and loss. This is how I processed that grief and accepted my diagnosis.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair. -Kahlil Gibran

These simple hand exercises can help make your child's hands stronger and improve fine motor skills.

Flowers 'n' spice and everything nice went into these lovely little mandalas!

The Lil Divas spend a big part of their day sitting at desks in school. The last thing they want to do is spend even more time sitting at h...

Build a marble run with an unlikely material… play dough! There are actually two STEM challenges with marbles and play dough in this post, and they are both a ton of fun for a wide range of ages. Best of all, the materials are cheap and can be used again on another day. Here’s a […]

Want to teach kids mindfulness but being met with resistance? Try these mindfulness exercises to engage even the reluctant students!

Keeping a kid with a broken bone busy and calm is a CHALLENGE! Try these ten smart activities for kids in a cast--they will stay busy and happy while not hurting their cast or broken bone! GENIUS!

Free printable weekly preschool planner for homeschooling.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed that "the seed of science" was "wonder," and taking a look at this nine-layer liquid tower from Steve Spangler's Sick Science! channel, one can't help but do just that — wonder. How is this possible? Is this magic or what?

The slat book was the first kind of Chinese book, make from slats of wood or bamboo and cord. This type of book is the reason that Chinese writing is done from top to bottom, rather than from left to right like Western writing. The books were rolled up and easily for storage.

Try this easy science experiment for kids at home: how to make fog in a bottle using common household items.

In this activity, children are invited to learn more about gravity, engineering and architecture in a fun and hands-on way. I'm not generally one to take pictures of buildings. Sure, I admire certain made-made structures but I've never felt compelled to take multiple pictures of non-historic buildings. Until I went to Dubai, that is. When I asked my family living in Dubai, "Why should families visit Dubai?" and one of the answers on the list was, "Architecture (Dubai has a mix of both Arabic and modern contemporary buildings which creates a unique and interesting landscape)," they weren't wrong. Out of the desert pops this quite amazing spectacle. I had never seen buildings like them. They appeared to rise out of the ground, often so tall that they looked like they were on a lean (perhaps some were?). A new shape and design around every corner. Everywhere that we drove I found myself constantly going, "Wow, look at that one!", "Woah! Check that out." and scrambling to take a photo before we drove on. You can see some great views of Dubai from the air in my earlier post. When I got home, my kids thought the buildings looked fabulous. Going through photos together brought up all sorts of questions and discussions. Opportunities for learning. How do they make the buildings stay up? Why don't they fall over? How do they get them so high? How did they make it that shape? The Burj Khalifa. The tallest building in the world. Building challenge for kids. To help us find some of the answers to the questions, I set out a classic and simple construction activity with just two types of materials, toothpicks and mini-marshmallows. We chatted about how being an architect means that you design, plan and oversee the construction of buildings. It is a very important job that requires a lot of study in order to be able to do it properly. Architecture is both an art and a science. It is the job of an architect to use their creativity to design something that looks a certain way and performs certain functions, as well as knowledge of scientific principles and mathematical expertise, to ensure that the structure stays up! Engineers are also very important in the construction of buildings. They use maths and science to come up with solutions to problems that might arise with the construction of a building. They often need to overcome problems with new solutions that have never been done before, to help realise the dreams of the architect and client. They also need to be able to think creatively. These days a great amount of technology is used in the design and construction of buildings. Here, we were getting back to basics and testing out simple structures. Seeing if we could work against gravity (that force that is always pulling things back to earth), and engineer a building that would stay standing without any assistance other than the arrangement of mini-marshmallows and toothpicks. Relishing in the beauty of a structure and in symmetry that often occurs in buildings. Discussing plans. Using photos for inspiration and to lead discussion. "I think you should make this one" Testing ideas. Problem solving. Whilst younger children (my son had recently turned 3 here) might not be capable of building free-standing structures, this is great for their fine-motor skills and for testing and experimenting. Sorting and counting. Playing allows for unplanned learning to occur naturally. Children learn naturally about 3-dimensional shapes and some of their uses whilst building in this way. Engineering some support beams to prevent the structure from falling. Handy Tips: To extend this activity children could be challenged to: First play the architect and draftsman role in the construction of a building by drawing up plans. See how high they can get a single structure to stand unassisted Test their construction against certain natural phenomenon. Can it survive winds (a fan) or an earthquake (shaking the table)? Build a structure entirely of cubes - To simplify this activity, younger children might find using larger, stronger materials easier for their developing fine-motor skills. Try regular sized marshmallows and paddle-pop sticks instead and let them experiment with sticking them together and seeing how gravity works. - Instead of marshmallows to hold the construction together you could use gum-drops or blu-tack. Instead of the toothpicks you could try straws or sticks. Here we tried building with cotton-buds and playdough with similar results. There are plenty of different combinations of materials that you could try. Happy playing, Debs :) Look where else we are. Are you following along? :) New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner

Looking for boredom busters? Grab this list of over 100 unique holidays and find something fun to celebrate as a family! Wacky & weird holidays every month!

Bonjour à vous! Il ne me reste que quelques jours pour réussir mon défi et compléter la liste de documents que je voulais vous partager, mais ça va très bien, il me reste 2 documents après celui-ci à vous donner, dont un déjà tout prêt! :) Aujourd'hui, je vous partage l'activité en français, qui est en fait une communication orale pour le 3e cycle, mais qui pourrait également être adaptée pour le 2e cycle. Le détecteur de mensonges est une communication orale durant laquelle l'élève doit raconter 3 évènements de sa vie, dont un qui est un mensonge. Le but est donc de trouver le mensonge qu'il a raconté. L'enseignante, ainsi que les autres élèves, peuvent lui poser des questions à la fin pour tenter de démystifier le mensonge. Le mensonge peut être inventé de toute pièce ou ce peut être un évènement vécu dans lequel on a modifié des éléments. C'est une activité amusante à faire et ça oblige les élèves à bien se préparer pour ne pas que son mensonge soit trouvé. Il doit être sérieux et sur de lui afin d'être en mesure de mentir sans être repéré. Ce qui pourrait être amusant, c'est de vous fabriquer un petit détecteur de mensonge en carton pour rendre la chose encore plus intéressante. Pas besoin de faire quelque chose de gros, une petite boite décorée avec des fils et des boutons peut faire l'affaire. Jouez le jeu avec eux, c'est ce qui rendra les oraux plus intriguants. J'espère que cette activité vous plait et que vous l'utiliserez pour l'évaluation de vos élèves, les bulletins ça s'en vient vite! :) Bonne fin de journée! :)

80 sponge activities you can do in your elementary classroom to make every minute count.

Make an origami cat using this fun and easy tutorial for beginners! This can be made as a two-piece origami, or a head only.

Bouncy Egg Experiment: Did you know that you could make an egg bounce? Try the Bouncy Egg science experiment and see how it works!