Explore Tubs for Objects & Materials {with freebies}

Here are some more Explore Tub ideas! Explore Tubs are my idea of early finisher tubs in Science class for when students finish their Interactive Science Journal page. You can read more about the tubs {here}, see my Senses tub ideas {here}, or my Weather & Seasons tubs {here}. I will change these six tubs out with each unit. I teach four units in Science: Weather & Seasons, Five Senses, Objects & Materials, and Living Things. These are my Objects & Materials explore tub ideas!

While I was doing my yearly plan, I decided to change things up for next year by teaching my Objects & Materials unit (which is usually only about 2 weeks) in April. The reason for this is one of the outcomes is about recycling which fits perfectly with Earth Day and the second reason is a fabulous follower of mine gave me the idea of doing a design project around building a house for the 3 Little Pigs. Well, I just happen to do a writing unit about the 3 Little Pigs in April, so how perfect!! I love when I can make connections between subject areas like that!

*Tub of random objects from dollar store, home, classroom, nature, etc.
*Magnifying glasses (I like these Primary Science Jumbo Magnifiers from Learning Resources)
*Science Sorting Mats from Lakeshore Learning--Students sort the random objects onto the different sorting mats (large/small, hard/soft, etc.).

*Variety of building toys such as Legos, Gears, and Tinkertoys

*Digital camera (an old one I don't use anymore)

*What Can You Build? sign (download here) laminated with dry erase marker. Students can build something out of the toys, write their name and what they built on the poster, and then take a picture of their structure with the poster. This helps eliminate the "I don't want to break it!" when time is up and we can make a class book out of all the pictures!

*Books about the three little pigs: The 3 Little Dassies, Three Pigs, One Wolf, and Seven Magic Shapes, The Three Horrid Little Pigs, Three Little Pigs, The Three Ninja Pigs, Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Fish, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, The Three Little Gators, Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Recyclers, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Little Wolves

*Three Little Pigs Puzzle from Lakeshore

*Three Little Pigs STEM Kit from Lakeshore

*Variety of materials (tin foil, paper, saran wrap, foam, newspaper, tissue paper, etc.)

*Mini flashlights

*Transparent, Opaque, and Translucent Sorting cards (download here). Students hold the flashlight up to each material to see if it is transparent, translucent, or opaque and sorts the material under the correct heading.

*Earth Day Sorting Game {by me on TpT}--I used sticky velcro dots to make my sorting game. Students sort the picture cards by if you would recycle it, reuse it, reduce it, compost it, or put it in the garbage.

*Books about the 3 R's: Cleaning Up Litter, Earth Day Hooray, Earth Day, It's Earth Day, Saving Water, Saving Energy, Pick Up the Park, Recycling Is Fun, We Need Water, Reusing and Recycling, What If Everybody Did That?, What Should I Recycle?

*Objects and Materials Sorting Game {by me on TpT}--I used sticky velcro dots to make my sorting game. Students sort the object cards by the type of material it is made of (rubber, metal, paper, wood, plastic, and fabric).

*Books about objects & materials: Joining Materials, Wood, Plastic, Paper, Rubber, Glass, Metal, Curious George Builds a House, Rock, The Most Magnificent Things, Natural and Human-Made, Materials

Hope this gives you some FUN ideas to make an otherwise boring unit more engaging for students!!

Five for Friday on Friday

It's here! It's Friday! The weather is beautiful! :) The sun is shining. And I get two days without my little monkeys... hehe. It's also time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs. Can't believe I made it on time today! Woo hoo!

{1.} On Earth Day, we watched the free movie of the week from Brain Pop Jr. on Recycling. We also watched this cute video on YouTube from Loop Scoops on PBS. Oliver has one minute to reduce a large pile of trash. This was a perfect lead up to our recycle/garbage sort.

We sorted images of common items into the recycling bin or the garbage can. Then we took a look at the items in the garbage can to see if we could reduce the trash further. We talked about composting, reducing, and reusing. You can download the sorting cards {here}.

{2.} Our grassheads are growing! Ok, yes, the grass is growing right on their faces, but it's still growing!! I succeeded! Woo hoo! :) The kids are pretty excited about these little guys.

{3.} This is the first year I have tried a take-home sight word program. I have been using A Teeny Tiny Teacher's awesome pack {found here}. I love her pack! When my students complete all their lists, they get a Sight Word Champion Trophy and Certificate. {You can download my ceritifcate here.} I just had my fourth student complete all the lists. On the other hand, I've also had six kids not bring a single list back. Oh well, what can you do?

{4.} For the last two weeks, we have been reading various versions of "The 3 Little Pigs" and doing some reading/writing activities from my new mini-unit (out sometime in the next week). Today we graphed which story was our favourite and write about why we liked it. Next week will start writing our own version of the story. The kids are pretty excited to start their stories!

{5.} Here's the view from my front door. The snow is finally melting! We can see grass! I don't want to jinx it, but I think spring might be here! Yipee!

Have a relaxing weekend! I'm off to help build the basement bathroom walls! :)

Earth Day -- Hooray!

Here are some of the awesome books I like to read around Earth Day:

We didn't read "The Lorax" during our Dr. Seuss author study because I wanted to save it for our Earth Week. I read the book and we completed this story map together:

We ended up watching the cartoon version of "The Lorax" one afternoon and we created a little graph to see which version they liked best. I forgot to take a picture of the completed graph, but here are the cards. You can click the picture to download them if you wish. I also included the new movie in the graph, too, for students who had seen it with their families and liked that one the best. I always vote books best ;)

We also put together our own little Lorax crafts (patterns courtesy of Fun in First Grade) and Earth booklets (inside pages are from Amy Lemons' Earth Day Craftivity Unit). They turned out so cute!

We have assemblies every Friday morning and my class was in charge of putting together a story for this past Friday. I knew some sort of Earth Day story would fit in perfectly! So together we made a predictable chart with the sentence starter "We can..." and I had each student think of one thing that we can do to keep the Earth healthy and clean. The next day I typed up each sentence in Microsoft Word, added a cute Earth border, and printed them out for the students to illustrate. I also took pictures of each of students doing the idea they wrote about. Lastly I recorded my students voices reading their page and put it all together for a short little video story! It turned out great!

I can't post the video, but here are some of my students' drawings and the matching pictures:

Now off to enjoy a bike ride in this beautiful weather!  Night!