Activities you can do at home with the kids that make science ANYTHING but boring! - An Ice Treasure Hunt

Here's something FUN for your kids over the weekend to beat the hot sunny day - An Ice Treasure Hunt! Kids loves treasure and they also loves to play in the water. This is definitely something that can keep your children occupy for a long time!

Here is what you need for this Ice Treasure Hunt:
- Ice cube tray or plastic containers
- some plastic toys that don't get damage when it get wet
- food colouring (optional)
- water
- FREEZER!

To do this activity, gather a bunch of small plastic toys and put them each in a ice-cube tray or a container. Fill it with water and put it in the freezer for about 8 hours until it is solid.

To add to the fun, you could also make a much bigger scale! (This is something you want to plan out the day before.) To do this, you will need a much bigger plastic container (Empty ice cream container will be the best).

Directions:

1. Fill the plastic container with about 25% of water. Drop in a few toys.  Freeze for a couple of hours.  
2. Remove from freezer and add about another 25% of water.  Drop toys in different areas.  Return to freezer.
3. Repeat until full.
4. Remove the ice block by running hot water over the container (be careful!) or let it sit outside for a few minutes.

Take it outside and put it on the floor or a table. Provide some tools and some jugs with warm and hot water in them and let your children discover what's hiding in the ice!

Challenge the children to use various method to melt the ice , such as hitting the ice with hammer, pour hot water over it, put the ice under the sun, pouring salt on the ice and etc untill they collect all of their treasures.

This will definitely occupy them for a long time and it morph into a bit of a science project as they will learn to experiment with different temperatures of water and with different techniques. It was also a good way to cool off on a hot sunny weekend! Science is everywhere once you start looking for opportunities to use it.

-Grace-

Activities you can do at home with the kids that make science ANYTHING but boring! - Magnet Fishing Game

Are your kids bored out of their minds at home every weekend? There are lots of fun science experiment you can do at home with your kids. Here is one example of science activity that you could try it out with your kids over this coming weekend - Magnet Fishing Game! This is really simple and it's fun for kids of all different ages!

Here is what you need for this Magnet Fishing Game.

To make the fishes:

• Few pieces of plastic sheets
• Paper Clips

To made the fishing rod:

• A stick
• A piece of string
• A magnet Ring

Lastly a large bucket or paddle pool filled with water for the pond and your kids can ready for some fishing game!

You could also try a larger pond by using a bathtub! Fill up your bathtub a quarter full, add those fishes to the water. Place a towel on the floor along with a plastic bowl to place the "fish" in that he catch.

If you do not wish to play with water, you could create another set of "fish" using just coloured paper and paper clips to play with on dry land.

To make the whole fishing game more fun and tricky, you could add in "fish" without paper clips. This will be a great way for your kids to learn that some of the things are magnetic and some are not.

You don't have to go to a museum to get playful with science. Simple science activity like this will definitely keep your child busy for few hours. Science is everywhere once you start looking for opportunities to use it.

-Grace-

Get Organized!

Teachers sometimes run out of ideas in ways to make teaching fun and exciting, even more so in organization in the classrooms. There are many websites out there that helps teachers with organization, whether in class or with teaching itself. Looking at some of the tips and tricks shown below makes me want to try them out even though I am not a teacher!

1. Get 2 empty bottles and label them as shown above. This will definitely help you when it comes to sorting out a bunch of pencils in the basket of all your colouring pencils! Let your children know once their pencils are blunt, put them in the bottle that is labelled "not sharpened" so that you will know that you'll need to sharpen it after class! At the same time, they get to learn opposites! :)

2. Have small boxes to organize your materials according to the days. It will definitely help you make sure the things your will need for that day are prepared and that you do not miss out anything! You can even do this for your children by swapping it with their workbooks needed for that day! Definitely a time-saver!!

3. Tired of glue mess? Pour some glue over a sponge in an air tight container and this will minimize mess as the child will dab whatever he/she wants on the sponge and catastrophe will be avoided! Close the lid tight when you are done and you can use it the next round without the glue drying out! Saves a ton of glue too!

Simple tips and tricks like the ones above are only some of the many many ways your can organize your class for a better learning environment! Having a clean and organized area for the children to work with will definitely help make learning all the more exciting and fun! Do you have any tips and tricks that you would like to share? 

I do hope that these are helpful in making teaching fun and less stressful for everyone!

~May