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9 results for "fine motor skills/"
Fun with Bubbles
Preschool - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 1st grade / 3 - 6 years Use bubbles to explore shapes, counting and colors! Below are some activities you can do with store-bought bubbles or a homemade solution made from dishwashing soap and water. (If you do these activities indoors, be sure to lay down newspapers or towels to prevent a slippery floor.) Encourage scientific observation skills! As children blow bubbles, ask: “What happens if you blow hard? If you blow softly? If you touch a bubble? How long do bubbles last? What color are bubbles? Are all bubbles the same shape? The same size?” Record children’s observations on chart paper labeled “Observations About Bubbles.” Add some liquid tempera to the bubble mixture, and hang poster paper on an easel. Have children blow bubbles onto the paper and see what designs form when they pop. Encourage active play! Go outside. Choose three children to be the bubble blowers. Set a time limit and have them blow as many bubbles as they can while the other kids race to pop the bubbles. Build counting skills with bubbles! Encourage the children to blow a set of bubbles that you specify. (For example, if you say “three,” children would try to blow three bubbles.)
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Turkey Memory Match-Ups
Preschool - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 1st grade / 3 - 6 years Use this easy-to-make card game to improve your students’ memory skills. You will need 12 index cards and two identical sets of Thanksgiving-themed stickers (e.g., pictures of turkeys, pumpkins, cornucopias, pilgrim hats, etc.). Thanksgiving-themed stickers can be purchased from a local store or card shop around Thanksgiving time. Place one sticker on each of six index cards. Then make an additional set of sticker cards identical to the first six so that each card has a match. To play the game, players place all 12 cards, sticker side down, on the floor or surface of a table. One at a time, players choose a card, and then try to find its match by flipping over another card. If the two cards show pictures of identical stickers, the player keeps the match. If not, he returns both cards face down. Players take turns playing until all matches are found. The player with the most matches wins! (For younger students, you may want to begin with only three or four pairs of cards. Then as memory skills improve, add additional sets for a more challenging game.)
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Guess My Number! Game
1st Grade - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 3rd grade / 6 - 8 years Build students’ overall math skills and number sense with this fun-to-play guessing game. Try a few Guess My Number! Game Riddles to get started. Simply have students read the clues, then solve to find the correct number. You can extend the game by creating more riddles for students to solve. Or, for an extra challenge, encourage students to try to create some number riddles of their own!
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Gumdrop Graphing
Pre-K - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 2nd grade / 4 - 7 years What better way to practice essential math skills, while celebrating the flavors of the holiday season, than to conduct a graphing activity…with gumdrops! Begin by purchasing several bags of gumdrops from your local supermarket or drugstore. Divide the bags into individual cups of about 15–20 gumdrops each. (You will need one cup of gumdrops for each student in your class, or one cup for every two students if you have them work in pairs.) Download the Gumdrop Graphing chart and make a copy for each student or pair of students. Have students write the names of the gumdrop colors across the bottom of the chart. Give students the cups of gumdrops and have them place their gumdrops in vertical columns by color to fill in the graph on the sheet. Next, guide students in answering questions about their graphs. For example, you might ask: What is the total number of gumdrops on your graph? Do you have more black gumdrops or more red gumdrops? Which column has the least number of gumdrops? The most? Are any of the columns the same height? If so, which ones? And what does this mean? How many more/fewer yellow gumdrops are there than green gumdrops? Once you have used the graphs to make mathematical comparisons, invite students to eat the gumdrops as a special holiday treat!
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Spring Learning Centers
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 3rd grade / 5 - 8 years This month, set up some fun learning centers with these creative ideas for spring! Read & Learn Comprehension Center Encourage children to sharpen their comprehension skills with these engaging, spring-themed reading passages! Print out several copies of the Comprehension Cards and place them in a file folder. Have students read the passages silently or with a partner and answer the questions. Kite Scenes Geometry Center Place light blue construction paper and pattern blocks in a center. (If you don’t have pattern blocks, simply download this pattern blocks template and reproduce it for students to use.) On separate index cards, write the name of each pattern block shape, such as triangle, square, trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus and hexagon. (Be sure to review the name of each shape before having students work independently!) Invite students to choose two or three cards, find the corresponding pattern blocks, and trace the blocks onto a 9" x 12" sheet of blue construction paper. If using the template, have students cut out the shapes and glue them onto the paper. Encourage them to use colored pencils or crayons to add details to the picture so that the shapes look like kites flying in the sky. They can draw the kites’ tails and strings, grass, flowers, clouds and more. After students have completed their pictures, have them describe the shapes they used in their pictures. Or, for older students, provide copies of the Pattern Block Kites reproducible and have them fill it out to describe their picture. Display the pictures with the students’ descriptions on a spring bulletin board titled “Pattern Block Kites.” Nature Detectives Science Center Take your students on a nature walk around the school grounds, and help them collect plant samples to bring back to the classroom for observation. (Or you can have them bring plants from home.) Provide each student with a magnifier and a Plants & Flowers Observation Sheet. Encourage them to examine their specimens and record their observations. After students are finished, invite them to tape their specimens to the top portion of a sheet of construction paper and attach the observation sheet to the bottom portion. Collect the pages, bind them together in a class book and place them in a science center for students to enjoy! For younger students, collect several specimens from plants common in your area, such as a fern, flower, branch and magnolia leaf. Attach each specimen to an index card and label it for added literacy exposure. Then place the cards at a center with magnifiers. Have students choose a specimen, observe it with the magnifier and draw it on a piece of paper. For additional writing practice, challenge students to label the picture by copying the name of the specimen. Little Ladybugs Counting Center Reproduce the ladybugs template onto red construction paper. Cut out the number tiles and ladybug counters, and place them at a center. (You can also laminate the pieces to make them more durable.) For young students, have them choose a number tile and count out the corresponding number of ladybugs. For older students, create additional tiles with math symbols such as an addition sign, a subtraction sign and an equal sign. Then prompt students to create math problems and use the ladybugs to find the answers! Write About It! Spring Language Center Reproduce these Spring-Themed Writing Prompts and place them at a center with pencils and crayons. Invite students to let their creativity flow as they write and illustrate their own stories!
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Mapping Mania
1st Grade - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 6th grade / 6 - 11 years Students turn their holiday trip to Grandma’s house into an opportunity to reinforce math and mapping skills! If students are taking a trip over the holidays, help them locate the starting and ending points of their destination on a map. (For short distances, use a city street map, and for longer distances, use a state map, a map of the United States, or even a globe.) Then show them how to map out their route and calculate the distance and amount of time that it will take to travel there. Note: If relatives are traveling to their house this year, encourage students to map the trip with their home as the final destination.
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Name Bar Graph
Pre-K - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 1st grade / 4 - 6 years This activity helps students to feel proud of their names…and familiarizes them with the names of their classmates. It even provides an opportunity to practice essential math skills with a colorful bar graph! Begin by asking students to think about their names. What’s special about their name? Were they named after a family member or a close family friend? Ask them how they would feel if someone called them by the wrong name. After you’ve discussed a little bit about why everybody’s name is special to them, read the story Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Ask students to describe how Chrysanthemum’s feelings changed throughout the story. How does she feel about her name at the beginning of the story? What about the middle? How does she feel at the end? Why did her feelings change? Then ask students to count the number of letters in Chrysanthemum’s name. On a piece of posterboard, make a classroom bar graph of the number of letters in each student’s name. Who has the most letters in her name? Who has the least?
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Manipulating Money
Pre-K - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 1st grade / 4 - 6 years In honor of Presidents’ Day, take the opportunity to point out to your students that most U.S. coins feature pictures of past American presidents. Then, let your students explore the coins hands-on with these fun activities! Coin Rubbing—Divide the class into groups of three or four, and provide each group with several different coins to share. Then, give each student a sheet of paper and some crayons. Have students place the paper on top of a coin and gently color over the paper with the side of a crayon to make a coin rubbing. Encourage them to repeat the process with both sides of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. The result will be colorful imprints of a variety of coins! Penny Probability—Place three pennies and a dime into a paper bag. Ask students to predict which of the two types of coins they are likely to pull out of the bag at random. Test their predictions by drawing a coin out of the bag and recording which coin was selected. Replace the coin and repeat this process 10 times. Allow different student volunteers to take turns removing and replacing the coins. At the conclusion of the demonstration, guide students in discovering that the probability of selecting the penny out of the bag is 3 out of 4, while the probability of selecting the dime is only 1 out of 4. Simple Sorting—Reinforce categorizing and sorting skills by having students work in pairs to sort jars of coins into piles by coin type. Then, have them arrange the different piles in order by size or by value. Penny Predictions—Hold up a penny and ask students to guess how many drops of water they think will fit on the penny. As they guess, ask them to explain why they think their guesses are reasonable. Then have each student work with a partner and give each pair a penny, an eyedropper, and a small cup of water. Encourage the pair to designate one person to count while the other carefully places drops of water onto the penny—one drop at a time until the water “overflows” and drips off of the surface of the penny. Then have them switch roles to try it again. Invite the class to compare their results and discuss whether or not they were consistent. (You might want to provide a simple explanation for how the water drops cling to the penny’s surface and create a “net” called surface tension until the force of gravity becomes stronger than the water and causes the “net” to break.)
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Printing Practice: Thank-You Notes
Preschool - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 5th grade / 3 - 10 years No doubt students will receive a few gifts over the holiday season. What better way to reinforce the concept of gratitude—and practice handwriting and language skills—than to have them write thank-you notes! Distribute some fun and decorative stationery along with a whimsical holiday pen or pencil that students will look forward to using. Encourage them to write notes of appreciation as they receive gifts from friends or relatives. Note: For younger students, you may want to have parents write the majority of the note as their child dictates it to them, and then have the child print his name at the bottom of the note. As they get more practice, you can have them write more, such as the recipient’s name or the name of the gift item for which he is writing the thank-you note.
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