Spring Weather: Temperature-Reading & Graphing Activity

The seasons they are a-changin'. And so is the weather! As spring approaches, the temperatures usually rise. What a great time to teach your students about reading thermometers and graphing. This easy-to-implement and hands-on bulletin board graph and free downloads will help you do just that.

Treasure Hunt: Map Activity & Science Experiment

Take students on an adventurous treasure hunt with this thrilling mapping exercise and science experiment! This activity will have students working on reading comprehension, mapping skills, following directions, writing, and science. Bonus! Get free downloads below.

5 Crafts & Experiments using Recycled Soda Bottles

We know you save every empty shoebox, paper towel roll, and soda bottle just in case the right class project or craft comes along.  So let us help you put those hoarded 2-liter soda bottles to work! 

Start by removing the labels and the sticky residue left behind. The trick is soaking the bottles in warm water, which will get most of the label off, and then using either white vinegar or peanut butter (yes, peanut butter—smooth, not chunky) to remove the sticky residue.

Worm Farm 
You will need a 2-liter bottle, 16-ounce water bottle (empty), sand, dirt, rocks, worms, tape, and black construction paper. Cut the tops off of the two bottles.  Be sure to save the top of the 2-liter bottle. Put about one inch of rocks with a little dirt in the bottom of the 2-liter bottle, then place the smaller bottle inside the larger bottle, and begin layering sand and dirt around the smaller bottle.  Once you have the dirt filled most of the way to the top, add three to five worms, and tape the 2-liter bottle’s lid back on top (remove the cap). Now, you’re ready to watch the magic happen. Worms work best in the dark, so cover the bottle with the black construction paper and check back in to see their progress. Encourage students to keep a journal to record what they see and discover.

Punctured Plastic Bottle Experiment
This experiment demonstrates how air pressure controls the flow of water. To demonstrate this, you will poke a hole near the bottom of a 2-liter bottle, cover the hole with masking tape, and then fill the bottle with water and put the cap on the bottle. Click here to download this experiment and activity from our Hands-On Experiments books.

5 Lessons of the Heart

Put a twist on your Valentine’s lessons with these heart-themed, science lessons, activities, and free downloads. They go beyond the mushy-gushy romance of V-day...although, we're not against that (see Secret Valentine Exchange)! Plus February is American Heart Month, so you can use these activities all month long to promote heart health awareness.

Getting to Know the Heart
Familiarize students with the parts of the heart with this free labeling activity from our Labeling for Comprehension Series. Students will read a short description of the heart, and then demonstrate their understanding by labeling the diagram. Now, they are ready to get their blood flowing with the next two activities.

A Blood-Pumping Graphing Activity
Integrate math, health, and heart-healthy science with this blood-pumping activity. Students will graph their heart rates while doing different activities.

1. Ask students, “Did you know that your heart is a muscle? In fact, it is the only hollow muscle in your body. Like all the muscles in your body, your heart stays strong when it exercises. Let’s see how exercise makes your heart work and keep strong.”

2. Have students find their pulse while sitting at their desks (resting heart rate). Have each student gently press their forefingers to their wrist, near the base of the thumb. Have them count the pulses while you keep time for 15-seconds. Then each student should multiply their count by four to get the beats-per-minute.  Have students write this number in this chart (free download).

3. Complete the chart together as a class. After each activity, have students take their pulse. You’ll be in charge of the clock, tracking the intervals, and making sure students stay on-task. When you are done, have students create a bar graph or line graph to show how their heart rate differed for each activity.

4. Explain to students that blood is a special “belt” that brings oxygen to the muscles and carries the bad away, and you want your heart to be in its best shape to do this well.

A Field Trip Through the Heart
Good News! This field trip does not require a permission slip. Students will take a trip through the heart right in your classroom.

• With tape, draw a large diagram (click here to download) of the heart on our classroom floor. This diagram includes a station for the lungs and body cells.
• Label the chambers of the heart, the lungs, the body cells, and all blood vessels accordingly.
• Place large blue circle cutouts in the body cells and large red circle cutouts in the lungs.
• Have a small group of students be the “blood” moving along the route through each station like blood flowing through the heart.
• Have two students be the “lungs” in the lung station.
• Have a few students act as the “body cells” in the body cells station.
• Narrate what the blood is doing as the students go through each stop.
• Explain what blood vessel they must take.
• As students reach the body cells station, have students exchange their red circles (blood cells carrying oxygen) for blue circles (blood cells carrying carbon dioxide).
• As students pass through the lungs, have them exchange their blue cells for red cells, which illustrates the diffusion of oxygen into the blood. Point out that blood vessels carrying blood away from the heart are arteries, and usually carry red blood.  Blood vessels carrying blood towards the heart are veins, and usually carry blue blood.
• Also point out that the right side of the heart handles blue blood and the left side of the heart handles red blood.

Tip: To really reinforce the lesson, have a different group of students take a trip through the heart, while another set of students narrate the journey.

Use these free worksheets <free download> before students take a trip through the heart to give a little background knowledge of the heart and cardiovascular system. These worksheets come from our The Human Body: Digestive, Circulatory, Reproductive, & Excretory Systems book.

Secret Valentine Exchange
Finish your heart-throbbing unit with a Secret Valentine Exchange. This activity is still science-focused while incorporating language skills.

1. Put every student’s name in a bag, and have each student draw a name from the bag.

2. Have students color and decorate this free heart template using red and blue crayons, construction paper, or magazine clippings to properly indicate where the red and blue blood cells flow.

3. On the back of each heart ask to students “pour their hearts out” to their Secret Valentine using heart-themed idioms or proverbs, such as: heart pumping, change of heart, heart misses a beat, heart bleeds, with a heavy heart, eat your heart out, from the bottom of my heart…etc.

Use this opportunity to encourage students to work on their handwriting, poetry, and/or creative writing skills. On V-day, have students share their heart (pun intended) with the whole class and reveal who and why they think their Secret Valentine has a heart of gold.

Freebies from the American Heart Association
Check out The American Heart Association who makes a variety of educational lessons, posters, activities, and other great freebies to support your heart lessons.

5 Gift-Themed Activities

‘Tis the seasons for celebrations and gift giving! It's easy to make this generous season part of your math, writing, science, and thinking lessons with these tips. Plus students will love giving and receiving these gift-themed activities.

Gift Stations ~ Math
Fill several different size boxes with random dollar store gifts and wrap them or use the dollar store gift boxes--no wrapping necessary. Then, put the gifts at different gift stations: one station for measuring, one for weighing, and one for word problems. Split students into groups and rotate them through each gift station. Have students work together to answer the questions you’ve left at each gift station.

Word Problems Gift Station: Tape a word problem to the bottom of each gift. Ask students solve one or all of the problems on each gift. Or to further challenge your students, ask them to determine which gift is the largest or heaviest, and then have them only answer the word problem on the bottom of that gift.

Measurement Gift Station: Ask students to measure each box’s width, height, length and determine which is the largest, smallest, and tallest gift.

Weight Gift Station: Do the same as the Measurement Stations with weight related questions.

Celebrity Gift ~ Writing
Because gift giving is so special, it should take a lot of thought and planning. Ask students to think about what they might give to their favorite celebrity or character from a book. They can pick the celebrity or have students pick one person from list. Then have write about the gift they would give. Ask student to describe the gift and why they chose it for that person.

Celebrity Suggestions: Santa Clause, the President, Walter Payton, J.K. Rowling, Miley Cyrus, One Direction, Bart Simpson, Justin Timberlake, Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games).

For more inspiration and mini biographies to help students know what to choose as a gift, have students read any one of our Celebrity Readers stories.

Pump Up Your Pumpkin Lessons this October

October is a great time to make this super-fruit the center of your lessons on observation, measurement, problem solving, seeds and growth, and more. For these activities, you will need one to two large pumpkins. Let's start by introducing students to the pumpkin with their senses.

Sensory Boxes
You will need:

• Fresh/raw pumpkin seeds

• Cooked or store-bought pumpkin seeds

• 4 shoe boxes with lids or empty tissue boxes

• Scissors (to cut holes in boxes, not necessary if you use tissue boxes)

• Tape (to keeps lids closed, not necessary if you use tissue boxes)

• Blind fold or bandanna
• Put fresh/raw pumpkin seeds in 3 of the 4 boxes and label them:

Smell – Poke small holes in this box so that the students can smell the contents, but not see inside the box  
Touch – Cut a hand-sized hole in this box. Have the children put their hands in the box and feel the slimy/wet seeds  
Sound – No holes necessary on this box. Tape the lid onto this box extra tight. Instruct the students to rattle and shake the box.  
Taste – Add cooked or store-bought seeds to this box. Cut a hand-sized hole in the box. Blind fold students and hand them a pumpkin seed to eat (know your students’ allergies before allowing them to participate in this box).  
Sight – for a unique and fun challenge, skip sight. Students will all get to use sight in the next activity.

Game Show Games with an Educational Spin

We all love a good game show! Next time you’re looking for ways to spruce up your game-play in the classroom, try watching your favorite game show and then modify the games for your classroom. This is not a new concept; it has been done for years with shows like Jeopardy and Family Feud. And now we’ve done it with three games that are spin-offs of NBC's Hollywood Game Night classics.  

If you're not familiar with it, the show brings together two awesome components—games and celebrities. We’ve simply put an educational twist on a few of Hollywood Game Night's very simple games so that you can use them to review just about any subject in your classroom. You probably won't have the celebrity guests, but you can definitely have fun! Bonus…these games require very few materials. Each game will require you to have a writing utensil (shock!) and a timer (a watch will do just fine).

Want more reasons to start playing games in the classroom? Read this!

Off the Top of My Head Materials: Sticky-Notes, Marker, & Timer

Split the class into at least two teams. Each student will have a sticky note on his or her forehead. Each sticky note has a review word, phrase, punctuation or grammatical term, math formula, historical figure, book character, or whatever you might want to review written on it. Everyone can see what is on the sticky note, except for the person wearing the sticky note.

Have one team play at a time. Depending on how many students are in each team, assign a time limit, like 90 seconds. Each team has that much time to try and get through as many sticky notes as possible. Have team members line up. The person at the front of the line turns to face the person behind him. That person gives the guesser clues to help him figure out what the sticky note on his own forehead says. Once the guesser gets the answer, he moves to the front of the line and turns around to begin giving clues to the person who was behind him. The person who was giving clues goes to the end of the line. Each correct answer is worth one point.

Watch how this game is played on Hollywood Game Night.