All Saints Day Party

Yesterday my co-op celebrated All Saints Day with a party after morning Mass.  All the kiddos dressed as their saints to attend Mass - it was so cute!  We gathered afterwards in the parish hall to eat some yummy potluck food and play some games.  I didn't get permissions to post photos of the children, but it was a great turnout and so much fun!

All Saints Day Banner from Shower of Roses

Crown Mary Ringtoss
Try to throw the crown of roses around Mary's head.

St. Therese Shower of Roses Tossing Game
Throw the roses into the hula hoop.

Pin the Halo on the Archangel

St. Peter's Fishing Game

St. Francis Church Building
(Block area for the littles)

A few bowling games

St. Cecilia's Musical Chairs

Coloring Pages

Some of the older kids helped out with the games, which was just so wonderful.  I wish I had remembered to take a picture of my St. Kateri, St. Michael, and St. George to share!  Oh well, I'll have to remember next year.  Thanks for reading!

Co-op Science: Air is a Substance

After our last lesson on Solids, Liquids, and Gasses, we went a bit more in depth into Gas - specifically air.  It is such an abstract concept for young kids so it is important to explore it a bit more before moving on.  Again, these lessons are for kids K-2nd grade.

Air is a Substance Co-op Class

Book

Air is All Around You by Franklyn Branley

Air Takes Up Space

Stuff a paper towel in the bottom of a class and submerge in water.  Bring back up and the paper towel is dry!  Why?  Because the air in the glass is already taking up space and there is no room for water!  If you repeat the experiment and tilt the glass - the air is able to escape in the form of bubbles, and there is room for water to enter the glass.  Then of course the paper towel is wet!  They all enjoyed repeating this experiment themselves!

Insert balloon into "empty" water bottle.  Try to blow it up and it won't!  Why?  The water bottle is already full of air!  There is no room to add more air to the balloon inside the water bottle!  We then poked a hole in the bottom of the bottle; allowing air to escape.  Then of course there was room to inflate the balloon since as it filled up with air, the air already in the bottle could escape out the hole in the bottom.

Air Has Weight

1 deflated and 1 inflated balloon on my homemade scale proves that the air inside the balloon has weight.  The kids were shocked to see this as they had insisted that the air around them doesn't feel heavy like a solid or liquid does!

Journals

Of course, the kids journaled what they observed during the demonstrations.

Thanks for reading!

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Catholic Co-op: St. Brigid & The Presentation of The Lord

We attend co-op classes once a week for 2 hours at a local Catholic Church. While Rafael's Preschool Class has a dedicated teacher, the teacher in the combined Kinder/1st grade class relies on rotating parent volunteers to help teach.  Each parent does their own thing - usually something having to do with the Liturgical Year, but not always.

This week was my turn to teach and I chose to have the kids learn about St. Brigid, The Presentation of The Lord, and some basic science. 

St. Brigid

An Irish Saint whose family was converted by St. Patrick.  Lots of legend and lore surround her but we know that she established several convents around Ireland.

Book
I skipped about 5 pages since I didn't have the time to deal with questions about the Druids or sorcerers!  The story was still a great read even cutting that part out!

Craft - St. Brigid's Cross

Instructions found at Catholic Icing!

The Presentation of The Lord

The Feast celebrating Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus at the Temple 40 days after his birth, according to Jewish law.  A holy man, Simeon, and prophetess, Anna, proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.  This Feast is also known as Candlemas and many churches bless the candles as a way of honoring Jesus as the Light of the World.

Book

Craft - Personalized Candles

Instructions at Come Together Kids

Science of Light

Since Simeon tells Mary and Joseph that Jesus will be the Light of nations, I segued into a simple science lesson about light. We talked about the terms Opaque, Transparent, and Transluscent. The kids did an item sort and worksheet. 

Printables found at TPT

I also sent the students home with the awesome printable found at Many Little Blessings for Catholic family Fun in February. She puts one out every month and they are so awesome!

Pinterest

Of course I have a Pinterest board full of more ideas to celebrate these two special days, plus more February feasts!

Follow Andrea Lucero-Watje's board Liturgical Year: February on Pinterest.

Thanks for reading!

Co-op Science - Solids, Liquids, Gases

Last semester I was teaching science classes through one of my co-ops.  Part of the reason in picking our new science curriculum was because I felt like science is like math.  There should be a logical progression of learning rather than random lessons here and there on unrelated subjects.  I wanted to continue to offer the science classes, but in a way that complemented our new curriculum.

The way I set up science for this semester is that I teach a class roughly every 2 weeks on a new chapter in our book.  On the weeks in between we do extra lessons, activities, and experiments to expand on what we learned in the co-op class.  I also send home a Parent Packet full of ideas so that the students in my class can also work on things at home.  I look at this as the best of both worlds.  My kids get to experience a collaborative group setting to learn the basics of each chapter, and then get personalized one on one experience at home to go into each chapter in more depth.

I asked the families to work on the first chapter (Organizing Things into Categories) on their own at home and last week at our first meeting, we worked on the next chapter together.  This is what we did at our group class - I'll post on our individual lessons later!

Solids, Liquids, Gases Co-op Class

Book: 

What is the World Made of?

Group Activity: Solid, Liquid, Gas Object Identification and Sort

I had a large box (larger than pictured!) of items from around my house that the students, working as a team,  had to sort into 3 different plastic shoeboxes labeled Solid, Liquid, and Gas.

Science Notebook: Trifold notebook journaling solid, liquid, gas

The kids made a tri-fold notebook.  The inside of each flap had pictures, examples, and characteristics of each state of matter.

Breakout groups: Worksheet, Card Sort, Object ID

I had laminated sorting cards (found at TPT), and a worksheet for the kids to work on (also TPT).  They rotated between those and doing the sorting activity from above independently.

The class was about 1 hour and had about 10 students ranging from 5-8 plus a couple of preschool aged younger siblings.  All in all it was a success and I'm looking forward to my next class!

Thanks for reading!

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Updated to Add:  See our extension activities here!

Co-op Science: Types of Rocks

A couple of months ago I hosted another science class for preschool-1st grade age students.  This time we were studying the 3 different types of rocks - Metamorphic, Igneous, and Sedimentary.

We started off by having a rock show and tell.  I asked the kids to bring some rocks to share and I borrowed some fancy rocks from a friend to show off as well.

Igneous

Igneous rocks are formed from cooling magma and so to demonstrate this, we lit some small tea candles and had the children pour the liquid wax onto wax paper and let it harden.  This of course should be done with adult supervision!

 Sedimentary

Sedimentary rocks are formed from various layers of loose sediment being compacted and cemented together over time.  We demonstrated this by having the kids create layers of colored sugar in baby jars and pushing down with a spoon to compact them.  I was planning to purchase a sand art kit, but couldn't justify the cost.  The food dye colored sugar worked just as well.

Metamorphic

Metamorphic rocks are formed when pressure and heat are applied to any other form of rock.  We demonstrated this by giving the kids different colors of playdough and having them form layers to create a sedimentary rock.  They then pressed them between their hands as hard as they could - which of course applied both pressure, and body heat.  The melded result was their metamorphic rock.

Snack!

We ate a related snack as well!  I made a Sedimentary cheese sandwich and then applied heat (stove) and pressure (spatula) to create Metamorphic grilled cheese.  Then I gave the kids a small amount of vanilla ice cream with some magic shell poured over it.  The resulting shell after it hardened was their Igneous dessert.

This was so much fun and I could see the lightbulbs going off in their heads.  Good times!  Thanks for reading!

All Saints Day

For some crazy reason I decided to volunteer to run the All Saints Day party at my co-op.  We've never had a chance to celebrate before but I had always wanted to, so it was really fun finding games and activities online.  Pinterest was my best friend in this case of course!  Since I didn't have a lot of volunteers available, I was looking for games that would be able to be played without an adult helper.

So many neat Saint costumes!  Michaela is towards the bottom left of the picture dressed as Mary, and Rafael is next to her dressed as St. George.

Games/Activities

Pin the Halo on the Archangel
I printed out a picture of the Archangels from Happy Saints and had the kids tape felt halos while blindfolded.  This particular page doesn't seem to exist anymore, but I know it is available in one of their wonderful e-books.

Crown Mary Ringtoss
One of the wonderful moms already had the Mary cutout, and I simply brought along a door wreath that I had previously made out of some dollar store items.

St. Isadore Pumpkin Bowling
I taped a harvest tablecloth to the ground as the "lane" and a box at the end of the lane.  The kids had to roll the pumpkin into the box.

St. Peter's Fishing Game
I made a fishing rod out of a stick, string and magnet attached to the end.  The fish were paper cutouts w/ paperclips attached.  The kids tossed the fishing rod into the basket and tried to catch a fish.

St. Anthony Lost and Found Game
I put some religious medals, cards, and various items into the wipes box along with some shredded paper.  The kids had to find the items inside.

Saint Cake Walk
I printed out pictures of various saints from Happy Saints, laminated them, and taped them to the ground.  The kids then walked around the circle as the music played, and when it stopped, the person who was on the Saint I called got a cookie.

St. Joseph Wood Craft
The children made a cross with popsicle sticks and yarn.

It was a really fun day!  Thanks for reading!

Co-op Science: Senses

I teach preschool-1st grade science classes a couple of times a month through a local co-op group. My first class was all about our 5 senses!

We started off with a group activity where we ate popcorn and practiced using describing words to talk about what we were experiencing with our senses.

After the group activity, the kids took turns experimenting with the "stations" I had set up for each sense. 

Taste

I had 4 cups with various substances: unsweetened cocoa powder, lemon juice, sugar, and salt.
They had to taste each once and decide if they were bitter, salty, sweet, or sour.

Smell

I had six baby food jars w/ a cottonball dipped in various substances: cinnamon, lemon juice, vanilla extract, almond extract, peppermint extract, and orange extract.  They had to try to identify what was in each jar just by smelling.

Hearing

I had a dozen plastic eggs filled with 6 different items so that each item had a match.  They were beans, rice, a coin, nothing, lentils, and a bottle top.

Touch

Balloons filled with different things to match simply be feeling (sand, water, beans, rice, lentils).

Sight

A magnifying glass with interesting items to look at.  They each had a journal to write/draw about their observations.

It was a great class!  Thanks for reading!

I'm linking up!