Dr. Seuss Camera - The Cat In the Hat Edition - iPhone App for Dr. Seuss Week!!

**UPDATE: Hello Pinterest! Wow, I thought no one read this little blog of mine. It's been on the back burner for over a year now. :) YES this app is FREE now and it is searchable in the app store --- Dr. Seuss Camera -- The Cat in the Hat Edition. Thank you and have a great Read Across America Day!



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Wow, my kiddos had fun with this one I just had to share!

During one of my centers today, students were able to use the Cat Cam app to put their picture into a Dr. Seuss scene. They selected the frame they wanted, took their picture, cropped how they wanted it, added a border, and saved it. We then put them on our class blog for parents to see. Too fun! Here's an example of the one I did. :)

You can download the Cat Cam for $1.99 on iTunes.   It's Free Now! Works with iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad....enjoy and HAPPY SEUSS WEEK!

Happy Grinch Day!

Sounds like a lot of us celebrated Grinch Day today! My class did so in style! We all wore green to get in the spirit!

Here's my class with the Grinches they made --- (ala Deanna Jump). :)

Grinch Punch! 7up and Lime Sherbert....yum!

 We feasted on Grinch Punch and Grinchy Cupcakes!

My kiddos loved the streamers!

Closeup of the Grinch cupcakes!

We played Grinch Punch-a-Bunch! Inside the bowls were trivia questions about How The Grinch Stole Christmas (and some candy!). Down below, you can download your own trivia questions that we used. Go HERE to see my original post about the Punch-a-Bunch Game. We also played Pin The Heart On The Grinch! 3 more days! 3 more days! :)

 

grinchtrivia

More Force and Motion Fun -- Marble Races!

Have I mentioned that I *LOVE* teaching science?! We discussed velocity and how objects move faster down an inclined plane set at a greater angle. We did a little experiment to prove this using our marble race track! Got the idea HERE.

It took nearly 6 seconds for the marble to roll down the ramp at this incline!

It took 1.77 seconds for the marble to reach the finish line at this incline.

1.25 seconds....Faster!

And only .78 seconds at the greatest incline! FASTEST!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

 

Yes, this little cutie is my *almost* 2 year old son. I may be biased, but I think he's the most precious thing ever. :) Photo by ME -- I was so pleased with how they came out!

And yesterday we had a mommy/son craft day and made these CUUUUUUTE thumbprint reindeer ornaments that have been floating around on pinterest. 

Isn't it really the most WONDERFUL time of the year?!

Force and Motion -- Marshmallow Shooters!

Whew! I needed a blogging break. Keeping up with this blog and my classroom blog for parents was stretching me thin. But I'm back with some fun science activities to teach force and motion!

This week we are learning about push and pull, friction, and how to measure movement. When I saw this idea from Real Simple magazine (my FAVE!), I knew it would be the perfect fun for this unit!

So after I had these made, I gave all of the students a few marshmallows to eat....just to get that out of the way! The rest were STRICTLY used for Science!

We discussed and demonstrated that little force won't move an object very far (or very fast), but if you use BIG force, it will move faster and travel farther. Wow, they had fun practicing that with their marshmallows!

We also discussed how we can measure how far things move. We went outside and each student had a turn to see how far they could launch their marshmallow. We used a tape measure to record the results.

Push and pull....force....measurement.....what a fun way to teach these concepts!!

Halloween Punch-A-Bunch!

Today, we had a wonderful time celebrating Halloween! I love all the Halloween freebies going around, including the WONDERFUL October Fun Facts by Denise at SUNNY DAYS. I was thinking about how to use these fun facts with my class. Somehow I got to thinking about Price Is Right and my favorite game was Punch-a-Bunch, where they punch a board and get the money that is inside. So I made my own punch-a-bunch board for my kiddos. Each student got to punch one, and inside they found candy and also a fun fact that we read to the class and discussed. It was so much fun!

To make the Punch board, I used styrofoam bowls, 2 layers of tissue paper, and tape. I taped the bowls to a science display board. It worked perfectly.

***However, if I were to do this again....I'd use the thicker Chinet brand bowls, they could be reused that way. You could of course use this idea for a review game for a test in any content area or skill. 

The board before the punches.

The students picked a punch....

Grabbed the goodies....

and read the fun fact to the class.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

A Pumpkin Experiment

We started this experiment a couple of weeks ago when we studied pumpkins. We wanted to know if we could grow a pumpkin plant inside of a pumpkin, if we took of the top and added soil and water. We wanted to grow a pumpkin in a pumpkin! Here's what we did:

Guess what! Yesterday, 9 days after we did our experiment, we saw this:

And today there are 4 sprouts! The kids were so excited to see that our hypothesis was correct! This is a fun activity to add to your pumpkin unit!