Air Moves Things

Materials: Straws, feathers, pom poms, plastic bottles, pebbles, crumpled paper balls, any objects that might move with air.

Place objects on a flat surface and blow through a straw, aiming air at the objects to see which ones move and how much air it takes to move them.

*Extension: Can you find 3 MORE things that air will move?

*Extension: Have air races. Who can move the feather to the end of the room the fastest?

*Extension: Go on a wind walk and observe all the things moving in the wind.

*Variation: Use turkey basters or paper fans to move objects.

*Variation: Create abstract paintings by dropping small amounts of paint on paper and blowing the paint around the paper with a straw.

Patternpillars

Pattern + caterpillars= patternpillars! Glue pom poms to a craft stick in a pattern. C's pattern was A B C A B C. Add wiggly ears and antennae if you'd like. The kids made so many of these today it was like a visit to the butterfly gardens, well before butterfly season.

*Variation: Glue on beans or buttons.

*Extension: For a chrysallis you can slip the caterpillars into a sock, and before the kids see them next, you slip in and add some wings of cellephane, tissue paper, or gift wrap so when they pull out their caterpillar it is no longer. Suprise, beautiful butterflies!

Pre-Cutting Activities

Strengthen your child's scissoring skills with some simple ideas:

1. The wooden clothespins (the kind that do NOT pinch open and sort of look like little soldiers) slide easily onto the lid of a container-oatmeal, frosting, box...make up a game?

2. Squeeze clothespins

3. Playdough, cutting playdough with scissors

4. Real clay with clay tools and hammers

5. Sort pom-poms or manipulatives

6. Finger plays, hand and finger puppets

7. Tear paper (torn paper collage)

8. Snip or fringe paper

To encourage proper grip on the scissors, make up a little tune and repeat this

Thumb on the top

Fingers on the bottom

Keep your elbow in

Pom Pom Sort

80 ct. assorted Pom Poms, $1 @ Dollar Tree

Collapsible Storage Box, $1 @ Dollar Tree

Another color sorting activity requires crafting pom poms and a divided container of some sort. I found this one with 8 sections at Dollar Tree, but you could use cups, dishes, plastic lids, 6-pack rings, dessert cups, pinch bowls, recycled clean plastic fruit cups...just about anything that makes for clear visual "dividers" so children can easily see groupings.

I just poured the pom poms onto the ground and let C decide how he was going to sort them. It was tricky because a few of the shades were visually hard for him to discriminate (white, pink) and he had to decide what shades could be put together (green, neon green).

*Variation: Buy a package with different sizes and colors of pom poms and challenge children to find new ways to sort them.

*Variation: For younger children, choose basic colors and remove some of the shades. Give them a jump start by placing one pom pom of each color into the groupings you are looking for.