Water Bead Fun

I'll never forget the first time I saw water beads! 

One of my kindergarten students had brought them 
in a tin container. She approached me as if 
hiding a secret and said in a hushed voice, 

"Look, Mrs. Castle, at what I have!"

She opened her tin and I took a look.

What the ARE these?! I was thinking to myself! 
She didn't know the name of them.
And she probably knew her parents didn't want her to have them at school...
hence all the secrecy. 

I remember seeing them wiggle and jiggle around 
in the tin and thinking 'Oh my word-I don't know what this is so she better just put it away real quick and take it back home!'

A few weeks later, I saw a picture on Pinterest of 
these same magical little beads,

 along with a home recipe for making them. 

To my disappointment,

 the recipe didn't work and that was the end of me thinking about them....

Every year, we take our family to participate in 
our church's family camp. 

My kids look forward to it every year! 
Here's three of them having some fun in the cabin:

This year, one of the activity centers for little kids 
was a sensory themed stations set up. The kids would spend
 about ten minutes or so at every station, exploring and feeling and playing with whatever gooey, slimy,  or messy materials were set out before them. 

That's when I saw the water beads! 
Lots of colorful, hard to hold, slippery water beads!

I couldn't get my hands out of them! They were so much fun to play with...
yes, even as an adult!

After a few questions, I discovered that they are actually 
hydrating beads used for plants. You bury some in the dirt around your 
plant and they will slowly release water for your plants. 

Hooray! Perhaps I CAN keep my plants alive! 

When they've released their water, they shrink back down. 

The next time you water your plants, they fill back up 
and so the hydrating continues. 

After a few more questions, I discovered that I don't have to "make" these as Pinterest was showing. I can actually buy them from 
Dollar Tree at only $1 per pack. 

As soon as we returned from family camp, off to Dollar Tree I went. 

I bought some right away. The thought of keeping my kids happy while keeping my plants alive was more than I could handle. 

Here's how you make them:

Buy your packages at a local dollar store. Floral stores and craft stores have them as well, but you are going to spend way more money than you need to. The packages we bought at Dollar Tree look like this:

We bought four packs in pink, green, blue, and clear. 

The clear pack actually came with three different sets of 
color beads...not sure why that one had so many more. But the 
other packs had about 50 beads in it.

They come with a plastic flower vase 
(perfect for flowers that students bring to me at school).

Each package also comes with a smaller package of water beads.

We filled up a bowl of water and dumped them in.

Now remember, I am just doing these with my kids for now. But in a classroom, it would be great to turn it into a science investigation. 

Here is a cool link for making it 
a Science Project  for your classroom.

Or what about using clear beads and coloring the water 
to see what happens?

The directions tell you to wait 6-8 hours. So if you're doing it in the classroom, start at the very beginning of the day so that they have time to grow as big as they can while you're in session. Or do them at the end of the day so that they grow overnight.

After dumping them in the bowl of water, we set the timer and waited!

Here's what they looked like after 30 minutes. 
Not that we were watching the whole time... (Wink!)

Eight hours later, here's how they turned out:

The pink ones really aren't my favorite. But the others are really cool in color!
All of them feel  A-MAZING!

Now, of course just putting your hands in the bowl or tub and playing with them is a lot of fun. But I found many other activities you can do 
with them too, all in a variety of subjects.

Here are 32 Ways to Play with Water Beads from The Chocolate Muffin Tree.

This next picture from The Imagination Tree, is what I am so doing with my ocean unit this upcoming year!

I also found some water bead math games!

Parenting Chaos shows how they can be put into shaving cream!

I found this picture and LOVE it! Click here to see that site.

The picture alone makes me want to dip my hands in!

Or what about putting them in snow this winter, or shaved ice?

Look what this mom did...

And, as one friend suggested, use them for a foot spa!

Isn't it the same concept as this toy from ToysRUs?

Speaking of foot spa... 

I better get going and try that out. 
After all...

(Wink!)

 ...I am the barefoot teacher! 

~Til next time!

       

    

Enjoying the Outside with Kids

Hello Friends,

It's Fun Friday and I thought I would share with you some  outside/garden activities that you can do with your students. If you are a parent looking for a few outdoor activities to do with your kids, these ideas can work for you, too!

First of all, I adore sharing the outdoors with kids! There is just something about kids and the outside. When I was a kid, we LIVED outside. Coming inside the house meant food, sleep, and baths; that's it. The rest of the day consisted of dragging toys outside, building forts for plastic animals with sticks and grass, and chasing my brothers around the yard. We even brought our meals outside!  Now, of course, life has changed and kids spend more time inside than outside. Life changes, but I STILL feel that kids need to be outside and whenever I can make the outdoors my classroom, I try to do it!

An easy and no prep activity that you can do with your kids is to simply give them a plastic storage bag. Their job is to find one item for every color of the rainbow and place it in the bag. The rules are dependent upon you! If you are comfortable with letting your kids pick things off the ground, trees, or bushes, then just set boundaries and let them go. Sometimes I will give my kids a storage bag and a pair of scissors. Rather than tearing off an entire leaf or flower from a tree/plant, they simply snip a piece off with scissors. If you do this and you have a large amount of kids, you might want to set some rules about how many kids can cut from a plant or how big of a piece they are to cut. If you don't do this, you might have some pretty naked plants! :)

When they have found their items, give them a roll of scotch tape and a piece of card stock. They use the tape to affix their items to the card stock; then label.

If you are not comfortable with  asking your kiddos to touch or take items from nature, you can give them a digital camera or iPad and have them take pictures of the items they find instead.

If you use digital pictures, the items they find do not even have to be alive. They could find be non-living things, too!

Another idea is taken from this wonderful book called LOOK WHAT I DID WITH A LEAF.

Kids search the yard looking for interesting leaf shapes and colors as well as other items they find laying on the ground. They use these items to create a picture using scotch tape, crayons, markers..... Add some paper and let the creativity begin!

If you are lucky enough to have a school garden as I am, there are so many fun things you can do with it. You can search for insects, look for differences in leaves, search for parts of the plant, search for vines and stems.... Arm your kids with clipboards and pencils and have them make drawings of what they see.

Another fun activity that I do with my students is a Garden Discovery scavenger hunt. First, I pair the children up. Each pair receives a clip board and a bag filled with a pencil and a box of colored pencils. Attached to their clip board is a recording sheet. The teacher picks a task card and shows the children the number on the card.

 The children write the number in the little box on their recording sheet.

Then the teacher reads the task and children search the yard or school garden for the answers. The entire group can be working on the same task card or individual pairs of kids can be working on different tasks.

 If you would like a set of these garden task cards, you can find them for free by clicking the link below. Enjoy!

Non-Fiction Fun - The "REAL STUFF!"

Hello again, it's Robin from Class of Kinders. This year my class is SO fascinated by non-fiction text. They can explain many of the non-fiction text features that make it so, but I still hear...Mrs. Harrington, is that really "REAL STUFF?" Whether it is a trip to the school media center to browse the non-fiction books, or reading our Scholastic News Magazines, or a close read of informational text…they are in awe! And as a teacher, I am in heaven…because they are hooked! Teaching Kindergarten and First Grade has its challenges and among them are finding cool, interesting, non fiction text that is at a level where they can feel successful as readers. Like many teachers, if I can't find exactly what I need for my students…then there is only one thing left to do - CREATE IT!  A couple of months ago, St. Patrick's Day was upon us and among the excitement of that little, green, leprechaun fellow...I decided to feature something else that was just as exciting and intriguing…and well, GREEN! So, I introduce my friend praying mantis. There was a quiet, collective gasp as I projected this picture of him on the screen in the front of the classroom….you might say I had their complete and undivided attention (wouldn't we love to bottle that!)

I followed up with a few more photos and a little discussion, then gave them a short & sweet close read about this fascinating creature. The students were anxious to get their hands on the information and off they went to read. After reading, I asked for them to turn and talk about something that they learned. I could hear things like "It said it can be green BUT it can be brown too" and "I read it eats its prey head first" (ewwwww!) and "It got its name because it looks like it is praying!" 

The discussion lead to another task which was rereading the information to answer

questions about the praying mantis. I've taught them to find the evidence in the text with a yellow crayon. I like to call it "buttering" which is better known as highlighting; but for Kindergartners and Firsties, I make the analogy - "it's like when you butter toast." So, off they went to read the questions on the front of the flip book, reread, butter the evidence, and write the answer in their own words.

Talk about being busy…and super engaged! WOW. I SO love that!

Do you have a special way that you like to share non-fiction/informational text in the classroom?

We would love to know your secrets and tips of how you hook your students and get them excited about ….the "REAL STUFF."

Want to give it a try in your classroom?

This Praying Mantis Close Read will be FREE in my store for one week, beginning today!

Grab it and give it a go with your kiddos!

Love it and want more? 

Check my Class of Kinders store.

Science Posters Freebie!

Do you have a science wall in your classroom? I created a science wall for my Kinders to refer to. Check out these cute easy to read posters on the Five Senses & the Scientific Method and they are FREE! Click here for the Scientific Method Posters. Click here for the Five Senses Posters.

Animal Characteristics

Are you teaching about animal needs and their characteristics?

Here is a fun activity that will keep your students engage and help them put in practice what they have learned in class.

This activity is perfect to use during your lesson or as a closing unit project.

Your students can describe, analyze and understand the importance of the different characteristics of animals. They will love to write about everything they have learned. Students also create their own animal with the features and characteristics learned in class. 

Your students can also create this organizer to describe each animal characteristic.

My students had a great time studying this unit! I hope your students enjoy it, too! 

You can download this activity {HERE}.

Mynda Rivera (B is for Bilingual)
Blog - TpT - Facebook - Pinterest
PK-2 Two-Way Dual Immersion
Texas, USA

Freebie from Becky Castle

Hey all! It's Bek here (from The Barefoot Teacher), and I've got some FREEBIES that will hopefully give you more time to kick off your shoes and relax! 

I know ocean themes are going to be starting up soon in classrooms, so that's what today's freebie theme is going to be.

Before we begin, I want to mention that the free resources I post below will be free today (May 1st) and tomorrow (May 2nd) only. 

Now, enough chit-chat, let's get the freebies rolling!

When I teach about the ocean (one of my favorite themes, by the way!), our big question is always, "What is IN the ocean?" After learning that the ocean is more than half of our world, we begin to wonder what on Earth is in it besides water?!

We then dive into this this emergent reader I made. 

It's a cut and paste activity reader. Students have to read the ocean related words and determine which page to paste them onto.  

Here are what the cut-out pieces look like: 

Click HERE to get this Ocean Friends - What's in the Ocean? Emergent Reader. 

Continuing our exploration of what exactly are some of the things in the ocean, I also made some Ocean posters to hang around the room. 

Then, I give the students a writing activity to go along with it. The students walk around and write the words from the posters when they find them (write-the-room style). 

When they are done, I use the posters are part of our ocean classroom decor. I like to line them up in the front of the classroom for the students to use as a quick reference if needed on other ocean activities we do. 

Click HERE to get these Ocean Posters w/ Writing Activity. 

I also made a Singular and Plurals matching game for the kids to play. They have a TON of fun! (Plus, it helps them master the K Common Core Standard: Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/.)

Click HERE to get the Ocean Friends Singular and Plurals Matching Game!


One last freebie....you might need some ocean themed sticker charts to use for incentives. 

You can print out full color ones, or the less-ink ones. Get them HERE.

I have a few other Ocean themed resources you might be interested in. They are not free, but have been discounted for a limited time! 

One is a huge Ocean Habitat Pack with 186 pages to print:

The other is a Non-Fiction Reading Comprehension Pack:

Well, that wraps it up from me, friends! I hope that your ocean themes are full of bubbly fun, and that my freebies will help make things just a bit easier for you.

Enjoy your weekend!

~Til next time