Drawing Robot

I was totally in awe and inspired when I saw these "ART BOTS" over on Teacher Tom's blog.  Oh my robot goodness.  We did ours a little differently than his, you should definitely see how he made his for the kids in his school. 

My son is a total tinker/builder/creator so we had an Erector Set with a motor in it. We simply taped the motor onto the top of a plastic cup and taped markers to the sides of the cup.  I covered our kid table with paper and taped it down.  Then we set the robot on the table and turned it on.  It was so cool!  My son was thrilled!  There really isn't much for the kids to do once it is set loose on the table, but we had fun predicting what shapes and patterns it would create and if we moved it what would happen.  It was a great experiment!  We will be doing this often!

Stringing Eggs

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  I was thinking this would be a fabulously fun, fine motor and math activity for my snake happy son.  We used plastic eggs and a pipe cleaner for ours, but you can see the original idea HERE.  I made a small knot at the end of the pipe cleaner so the egg ends wouldn't slip through.

I was thinking they looked a little like caterpillars, but Tayler saw his as a cobra snake.  So he stuck one of the eggs on the opposite way to create it's "hood".  Then he added eyes and left the pipe cleaner sticking out for the tongue.  Pretty dang cute cobra to me!

Another great fine motor skill.  You could incorporate patterning and counting into this as well.

Stacking and Patterning

Here is a great way to use those plastic eggs.  Seperate them and use them to stack and pattern.  Easy, peasy, cheap and fun. 



Get Crackin'

My kids love to crack the eggs when we are cooking.  So, it gave me this idea. I poured a small amount of (watered down) paint into plastic eggs..  I didn't match the color of paint to the egg just to add to the element of surprise, but you could certainly do so.  I put paper in a box lid just to contain the paint.  Then I handed them over to the kiddos!  This was a blast and I couldn't fill up the eggs with paint fast enough.  A fun way to strengthen those muscles needed for writing along with some great creativity. 

Deborah over at Teach Preschool  had this same exact idea.  Her kids extended this a bit with some rolling and dabbing.    Such a great process.  Hop on over and check out their work too!

Fluffy Stuff

After seeing Lisa Murphy do THIS I had to try it.  All you need is a bottle of shaving cream and a box of corn starch.  This was enough for two tubs of this wonderful, fluffy stuff!  We poured about half the box of corn starch in each tub and then just squirted the shaving cream into them.  We used the entire bottle between the two tubs.  The incredible thing about this is that after a bit, it's moldable!  The kids LOVED it.  Now to replenish my shaving cream supply.  Next time we will try adding some color too.  So fun and a great fine motor and sensory experience!



Silly Face Egg Matching

We saw these silly face eggs at the grocery store and I couldn't pass on them.  We came home and I plopped them into an egg carton.  The children quickly began sorting and matching them by the facial expression.  The funniest part was watching them try to make the faces themselves!  Haha!  "This one is mad, this one is scared".  Fun and easy, math, matching, language, colors, and sensory!

Spear It

We saw this experiment over on Steve Spangler's Website. I knew it was one that my kiddos would flip over.  You will need:

 5 or 6 sharp pencils

 Zip lock baggie

 Water

towel or bucket to do experiment over

Push the pencils through the baggie without pulling them back out or you will have a water spout experiment.  Push the pencils all the way through the baggie to the other side.  The bag will seal around the pencils and will not leak one drop.

The plastic bag is made of polymers which give it it's stretchy quality.  The polymer molecules seal back around the pencil so that the bag doesn't leak. 

Cool, huh? 

 My kids ask to do it all the time now and show their friends the "Spear It Experiment". 

Go ahead and try it, I know you have everything you need!

 



Monster Truck Derby with Smashable Aluminum Cars

Recently, we went to a Monster Truck show, where the huge trucks were jumping over and smashing into junk cars.  Ever since then, my son has been creating his own monster truck shows.  The issue was his little cars would not smash!  So my husband came up with aluminum molds to jump and crash over.  Genius!!  He cut a small piece of aluminum foil and pressed it on top of the car, creating an imprint of it.  Then, my son lined them up and smashed away.  The super thing about this is that the cars can be "created" over and over again.  Serious fun!

Let the Smash Up Derby Begin!!!