Last year, I started a new Space Club program at four middle schools. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I searched the web for ideas and curriculum to implement. I soon became excited to find great resources like NASA and TeachEngineering , but I was
I came up with the idea for Race to the Galaxy (originally named Space Colonies) after reviewing games on the PhysEdGames YouTube channel. Since I’m a huge Sci-Fi fan, I really wanted to add a space-themed activity to my cooperative … Read More
Get your students back into writing with these awesome August Writing Prompts!! Great opinion ideas, fictional narratives, and relatable informative topics.
Since summer has officially began, I have been working very hard creating some new products for the upcoming school year. I know that th...
This simple craft uses our solar system coloring pages for kids to color and then transform into an easy blueprint to create their own solar system model.
If you're looking for a fun math activity to add to your space unit, these free outer space pattern block mats are a perfect fit.
Welcome to my pre-k classroom tour! Classroom spaces and and arrangements are so very important and especially in the early childhood years! Defined areas for learning centers allow for students to be gravitated to new provocations and it also helps them know where to return materials properly. I love to create inviting center areas that are already set up for play! It gives students kind of an invitation to play and a few ideas about how to get started. The center learning areas I have are: blocks, pretend, discovery, reading, abc's, art, ipads, math, sensory, puzzles, & light table. Sometimes I don't have the centers open all at one time. For example, at the very beginning of the school year blocks and pretend centers are open. Students learn to be responsible in that center and then a new center is open/added every couple of days. I also like to incorporate the topic we are studying into all the centers. Currently, we are learning all about the season of spring! There are so many seasonal concepts students are interested in. We are exploring insects, spiders, butterflies, and gardens! We are also learning new art techniques with our Andy Warhol bee prints and learning about garden artist, Claude Monet! First stop, our morning board area! Here we have our word wall which has our alphabet circle letters (purchase here!), sorted student names, environmental print from our community, and post-it note student drawings of vegetables we have been learning about! We also have our Smartboard, Wish You Well Board, and other carpet/circle time supplies. Here is our newly arranged blocks center! This is a new classroom and I finally came up with a solution of where I wanted our blocks center to relocate. For a few years I have had it open to the group carpet area. It allowed for students to have a lot of room to build...but when it was time to clean up (and even if I gave the blocks group a head start) ..students were waiting to sit because of the blocks on the floor. So during winter break I revised the room layout a little bit which allowed for a new reading area, separate blocks area, and larger discovery area. It is working quite well! I am trying to stay with a more natural theme this year.. I purchased the two burlap canvases (above shelf) at Hobby Lobby and they display photos from our buildings study and photos of our observation of a hobby farm construction. The carpet is from IKEA and I like how they colors and design are a bit toned down? ..unlike a regular primary colored transportation rug. I was also attracted to this rug because it features a castle (for fairy tale unit), an igloo (for winter unit), and neighborhood buildings. We were studying community, construction, and maps when the rug arrived so it tied in nicely! The mirror is actually a pretend dress up clothes cabinet that I flipped over. It makes the center appear larger and students can view their constructions from a variety of angles! The blocks always stay in the center but I rotate extras with the current topic of study throughout the year! The "extras" include road signs, cars, construction vehicles, flowers, stuffed animals, plastic toys, people...whatever fits the theme. The blocks center also includes baskets for storage and clipboards. We practice drawing out our "construction plans" on the clip boards and students also like to copy the vocabulary posted. Our newly expanded discovery area! I have a large wooden spool/table and 2 wicker Ikea chairs that I hope to add in soon. The discovery center is all about investigation & finding out! Students explore weight differences, measuring, size ordering, textures, etc. The discovery center permanently houses science tools like a microscope, tongs, tweezers, pan balance, scales, binoculars, and magnifying glass. The center also has baskets for storage, clip boards for observation drawing & writing vocab, pencils, sensory bottles, plants, and vocabulary. In our discovery are we also have informational picture books on insects and gardens, seed activities, a butterfly observation basket, During our spring unit of study the center holds: The Very Hungry Caterpillar butterfly life cycle cards, plants, mini pretend nature doll house, seeds & seed packets, real butterfly wings, and a basket of textures. Here is an example of another unit of study in our discovery area. This photo is from our summer ocean unit from last year. Items can easily be switched out and easily rotated to fit any theme! This is a photo of our spring math center that contains insect books (that focus on counting & time), folder games, a Hungry Caterpillar roll, count, draw game, a Hungry Caterpillar graphing game, chick eggs number match up, sensory numbers, and a few other spring themed math games. I love using trays for center games with little cups on the trays. Trays help students be ready to play with easy setup and easy clean up! Before we play in new centers for the new topic of study we ALWAYS have a class circle time meeting about center procedures. We go through how to play every game (teacher and students model) and how to clean it up! This is so very important and helps center time to run much more smoothly and students learn practical life skills. Our new reading area! It contains a Hungry Caterpillar felt board for story retelling and sequencing, Hungry Caterpillar sequencing cards, pillows from Hobby Lobby, rug from Ross, two wicker Ikea children's chairs, insect puppets, books about gardens and insects, and also spring themed QR codes that lead to stories on the ipad. Our sensory tub is filled with flowers, magnet numbers, green and pink pots for patterning, gardening gloves, gardening tools, and watering cans. It also has mini vocab. cards that I laminated and then taped to the side. Sensory is such a fun center and quite popular too! There are hundreds of sensory ideas on Pinterest. I store sensory materials in large plastic bags in a tub. I like to sprinkle in plastic magnet numbers and letters and also post vocab on the outside of the tub. Tweezers, tongs, chopsticks, and shovels can be added to help with fine motor! This is our ABC center which now features Hungry Caterpillar word cards, Eric Carle stories, rhyming cames, and alphabet matching games. I have my writing center and ABC games combined this year and we call the whole center ABC center. The writing supplies are located next to this shelf and contain whiteboards, a variety of writing utensils, paper, and wikki stix. The ABC center games can include: letter matching games, letter bingo, alphabet beading, letter i spy sensory bottles, letter formations sticks, letter tracing, etc. Our spring pretend center filled with farmer's market items such as flowers, pots, seed packets, and vegetables! We incorporated literacy into this center by having gardening books, seed packets, an open/closed sign, and vocabulary displayed. Pretend is such an important center to have for students to explore community roles, practice life skills, and just experience "play." This is just a glimpse of all the fun and exciting things going on in our classroom for spring! Thanks for stopping by to check out our classroom! Only a few more months till school is out, then summer, and back to fall again!
If you’re really lucky, your independently-bought applainces fit perfectly into the already-built room you put them into, without an inch to spare. The rest of us, however, are left to deal with awkward spaces where the oven doesn’t quite fill the space between cabinets and the washer and dryer seem to float in the laundry room. In those spaces, you have no choice but to get creative.
It's that time of year where you're getting your classroom ready for a new school year! You fill the walls with posters, label everything in sight, and organize your supplies. Something you might consider is adding posters like these real-life shape posters to your decor! Why Use Real Life Images? Sure, we can slap a
A new trend on TikTok has people sharing the picture the Hubble Space Telescope took on their birthday. Find out how to see what photo NASA took on the day you were born.
We discuss the branding of Serif, the new online platform dedicated to connecting LGBTQIA+ communities, with Pentagram partner Emily Oberman.
New year, new you: Time to declutter your home and simplify your life. We polled our favorite minimalist design homeowners to find the products they swear by.
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Students love this Four Square Hula Hoop activity! It works on teamwork, fitness, spatial awareness, and underhand throwing skills. It’s a competitive
Discover 20 whimsical garden walkway ideas that transform your outdoor space into a magical retreat. Explore creative paths and make your garden enchanting!
As regular readers will know, we have been slowly but surely (some would say pretty quickly actually!) updating our family…
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Discover creative wall painting designs for every room in your home with our simple and affordable paint ideas to help you personalise your space.
Last April, Emily Henderson needed a privacy solution for her rental studio space and wound up covering individual panes with a variety of window films — which not only added fun pattern and color to the space — but also added a helpful and modern-looking window treatment. We followed up with her to hear how it’s doing months later, and whether she thought it was worth doing in the first place.
Decorating, organizing, and preparing your high school classroom spaces is critical for new and veteran teachers alike. Here are four ideas to get your classroom prepared to support and inspire your students and keep you motivated to deliver incredible lessons!
8 Space theme Pictures to work on symmetry. 3 levels of difficulty for differenciation. No prep, just print, copy and use! For the level 1 the drawing is complete and the student must color symmetrically. For the level 2 half of the drawing and part of the other half are done and the student must complete and color symmetrically. For the level 3 half of the drawing is done and the student must do the other half and color symmetrically. This product is different from other symmetry products. The drawings are my own and are made geometrically so that the symmetry work is a real precision work and locating on the grid. The drawings are more or less difficult. This activity is a great addition to any math center and is perfect for early finisher, substitutes or homework. You may like my other Symmetry Products and my other Space Products! Subscribe to my Newsletter to receive a FREE Cat Math Mystery Picture and other free products throughout the year! FOLLOW MY TPT STORE: As a follower you will learn about new products that are released, sales and discounts. Click on the “*Follow Me” by my Gentle Oddities logo to stay up to date! SAVE BY LEAVING FEEDBACK ON PURCHASES If you leave feedback on any of my products you can build up TPT credits that may be applied to future purchases. Just submit feedback when you purchase a product or go to My Purchases for a list of your purchases. Click on the Leave Feedback button and leave a rating. Then go to your TPT credits to learn how to redeem credits for purchases!
Name: Acid Grotesk Designer: Folch Studio Foundry: Folch Studio Backstory: Last year, we wrote about Acid House Barcelona, a new alternative education program started by Spanish agency Folch that’s aiming to turn design education on its head. The space is dedicated to educating students on the
