Bulletin Board Ideas

Here are a couple of the bulletin boards we have up outside the classroom. The first one focuses on our transportation unit. There is some of the children's work posted. It was a project where they had to tell how they come to school, by bus, car, truck, etc. and then cut out that vehicle and glue it on the paper. I also added some strips of paper that have objectives listed that relate to what the children learned and on the outside, I posted some photos from our wrap-up celebration of our study when parents were invited to come and race remote control vehicles with their children. 

These are our patterns we made using different color light bulb cutouts for our "Investigating Light" study. As you can see at the bottom center the one that is all blue, one friend got creative and decided to cut out and glue on his own light bulb. Although he didn't create a color pattern with it, I felt that it was worth displaying as he took it upon himself to extend the activity.

I like how both of these turned out with the bright colors. I felt that they really stand out!

Bean Growth Experiment and Documentation

We decided to do this experiment to find the answer to our question: Can a seed grow without soil? This question came up during our study of where plants grow. We talked about plants that grow in water, sand, on rocks, and even in snow. 

The first step was to make predictions. Each child voted whether they thought it would grow with no soil. Then we put a pinto bean in a ziplock bag wrapped in a wet paper towel and taped it to the window (April 17). We checked it every few days to see if it was growing. 

Our bean on April 20.

Here is what we wrote in our science journal.

Our bean on April 24.

Here is what we wrote in our science journal.

Our bean on April 26.

Our bean on April 27.

 Our bean on April 30.

We kind of got busy with another project and didn't have a chance to write in the science journal as much after the first 2 times, but here is the documentation board I made using the photos, children's drawings and our predictions from the first day.

Our conclusion: Yes, seeds can grow with no soil!

5/15 UPDATE: Thanks to the suggestion of one reader, I decided to talk to the kids today about why the plant can grow with no soil for a while and why it will need to be planted in soil to continue to grow after it uses all the nutrients from the seed. It went very well and the children seemed to understand. If it wasn't the last week of the school year, I would continue this experiment by planting one of the bean plants in soil and keep the other in the wet paper towel and have the students continue to observe. Oh well, there is always next year.

What kinds of experiments have you been doing?

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The Lid Game

Here is a very simple to create activity for very young children. I think I started this with L when he was about 9 or 10 months and he still loves it at 15 months. I got the idea from his school. They took a plastic container and cut a slot in the lid. Then the child can slide in baby food lids or some other small lids. For added benefit, you can add photos of family members, classmates or anyone you would like your baby/toddler to learn their names.

This was L's favorite activity for the longest time and he still plays with it once in a while.

You can also make a sort of family tree with circles just big enough for the lids so the child can match the person's name to the picture for older children or you can put a photo on the family tree for younger children. I love this idea because it allows children to see how family members are related in a very tangible way. It is hands on and hopefully more meaningful. And maybe they will even be less shy around the family because they are used to seeing their photos.

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E-mail Penpals

My class recently began writing to my sister's preschool class in Germany. She had recommended a book which I read to my class and they were interested about her and her class, so we took a photo of ourselves and e-mailed it along with some questions the children wanted to know to her. If I had this to redo, I would have begun this at the beginning of the year so that the children would have had more time to interact, but alas, it is our last week of school. I plan to start much earlier next year. Some things that you can incorporate with this activity is finding where your penpal lives on a map, taking pictures of some of your artwork and sending, or actually sending something to each other through snail mail. Since my penpal was my sister, I am not really sure how to find a class to write to, but my suggestion would be just go online and find a teacher who teaches the same or similar age group and ask if they would be interested. Facebook maybe or search blogs. Allow the kids to come up with things they want to know or something they are interested in to ask. Some examples of questions you can ask if your children are having a hard time getting started are "What does your classroom/school look like?" "What are some things you do everyday at school?" "Do you have a class pet and can we see a photo?" Get them excited so they will anticipate the next letter. Have fun!

ADDITION! 5/17/11

I just wanted to add that it would be a good idea to put all the printed letters from your pen pal and copies of the letters you sent along with photos in a binder in chronological order so that the children can go back to it throughout the year on their own. They may have you read it to them or just want to look at the photos to get ideas of other questions they want to ask. Also, a great idea to do with your globe is pictured below except we would use small dot stickers instead of push pins to show different places you talk about in class including where your pen pal lives. This is a great geography activity.