How To: Make a Headband Game!

Make your own headband game for any subject!

I made the headbands out of construction paper and printed images and attached the pictures using a paper clip. To make a version that will last longer, follow the directions below:

Materials: Construction paper, tape or glue, scissors, velcro, a laminator, printed pictures

1. For this activity, I used pictures taken from the BBC worksheet page for Religious Education, but other pictures can be used to play this game in any subject! 

2. Print pictures from a template such as the one I used, or collect and arrange pictures in a table created on a word processor and print the document

3. Cut out each image and attach it to a piece of construction paper to make the paper thicker, or print using cardstock. Cut the picture out.

4.  Cut construction paper of various colours into strips to make the headband. Attach more than one strip to make the headband larger if necessary. 

5. Laminate each picture and each strip of construction paper. Cut the laminated pieces leaving a small border around the pictures and headbands (this keeps the laminated border sealed)

6. Add small pieces of velcro to the ends of the headband to make the size adjustable

7. Add a small piece of velcro to the back of each picture, and one piece on the middle of the headband. This allows pictures to be attached and removed easily

That's it! A simple reusable game for any subject!

How To: Make a "Caring for Creation" Tree!

This project was originally created with a colleague for a Religious Education activity, but this can so easily fit science curriculums as well! 

Materials: Construction paper - black, brown, green, Glue stick, Scissors, Pencils, Black marker

Instructions: 

1. Have students select a piece of construction paper to use as the background colour and lay it aside

- We chose black to make the tree stand out - dark blue would also look great!

2. Ask students to trace an outline of their hand on brown construction paper, cut out the outline, and lay it aside 

- This will make the trunk of the tree

3. Ask students to draw and cut out different sized hearts on green construction paper 

- This will make the leaves of the tree

4. Have students glue their hand outline at the centre of the bottom of the page to create the tree trunk

5. Have students glue the hearts around the fingers of the hand outline to create the leaves of the tree

6. Allow the glue to dry, then ask students to write "I care for the environment by..." on the trunk of the tree, and ways they care for the environment on the leaves of the tree.

- Have students write their ideas in pencil first and then outline in a thin black marker

That's it! This makes a great piece of work for students to post on a wall in the classroom and gets them brainstorming about ways they can contribute to helping the environment!

How to: Make a "Guess the Picture" Game

Here are the steps I used to make my Guess the Picture game for my Religious Education activity centre!

1. I made a 3x8 table on google docs (you should be able to do this on any word processor)

2. I added one picture per square and resized them to about the size of a Guess Who game piece (I printed off a test page when I had a couple of sqaures filled to see if they were the right size and did the rest based on that)

Click here for the final copy of my pictures

3. Once I figure out the proper size, I printed off the good copy of the pictures and cut each square out to be the same size as the original game pieces (print 2 copies, each Guess Who board uses 24 pictures)

4. When I had all 48 pieces cut out, I just popped out the original pieces, and taped the new pictures over them 

5. Then I replaced the pictures into the frames!

That's it! A reusable game for any subject!

Learning Centre - Religious Education Part 1

Part of our curriculum in Newfoundland and Labrador focuses on world religions. The following pictures are from a Religious Education learning centre that I created to coincide with the outcomes covered when grade three students learn about Buddhism, Christianity, and Sikhism.

The four learning centre areas were Research, Writing, Crafts, and Activities.

Research Station

Instructions for the first activity:

Worksheet for the Contributing to a Cause activity:

Students can research a person or group, or fill out the worksheet about someone from their own community. The worksheets are intended to be collected and bound together to create a class book. A great way for students to see the product of their work, or a nice collection to show parents during parent teacher interviews!

Bonus Activity Instructions:

Thank-you cards can be posted around the classroom as a display piece, or sent to members of the community.

Writing Station

Instruction sheet for a writing section focusing on Buddhism and Christianity:

Sample of the process and finished product:

A great excuse to make a cup of tea while you work!

See my other post for part 2!

*All clipart images used on the worksheets were found on Google Image search

Learning Centre - Religious Education Part 2

Part 2 of the learning centre for grade three Religious Education!

Craft Station

(This station has two activities)

Instructions for the first activity:

Sample of the finished product:

Based on a craft from Pinterest

Second Activity:

This idea came from a board on Pinterest

To promote caring for the environment, I used a recycled water bottle instead of a glass jar. The plastic bottle is definitely safer for use in a classroom! This craft was inspired by meditation as a part of Buddhism.

Finished Product:

You can see the glitter starting to settle in the second picture. It really is calming to watch!

 Activity Station

This is the section of the learning centre where students can put the information they learned to good use -- with GAMES!

Instructions for the first activity:

A Guess Who inspired game with the original idea from Pinterest. 

The Religious Education version:

I collected 24 pictures from Google Images and BBC lesson resources and taped the pictures over the original pieces. A little time consuming, but not difficult to do! Instructions for how to make your own version can be found here.

Instructions for the second activity:

A HedBanz inspired activity of my own creation which uses many of the same images from the Guess the Picture game - an extra activity so children won't have to sit out and wait their turn. 

Edit: step four should say no not know...oh dear!

Additional activity idea if students are uncomfortable with displaying religious symbols on their heads: Remove the cards from the headbands and play using the cards as a matching game.

Finished Product:

I created this game by printing out images from the BBC website (listed above) and attached the pictures to construction paper. 

I made the headbands out of construction paper and printed images and attached the pictures using a paper clip. To make a version that will last longer, simply laminate the pictures and headbands. Velcro can be used on the back of the image and on the headband instead of a paper clip, and on the ends of the headband to make the size adjustable.

Math Fair!

Let's Go Camping! is a math problem that Ms. Kikuchi and I prepared for our math fair based on the Hot Potato problem from galileo.org educational network.

What is a math fair? Click here to find out! 

Click here to see the original Hot Potato problem!
Click here for Ms. Kikuchi's Twitter and Blog!

Let's Go Camping!

Our math fair display:

The purpose of our math problem was to create a student-centred activity where they could work independently or collaborate with their peers to find the answer. No "right" answer was given, they had to prove to us why their answer was the right one and how they found their solution.

We provided hints which included ideas such as "Try using a manipulative!" and "Try drawing a diagram!" which we placed behind the "Hint" labels on the backboard so that students wouldn't accidently look at them before trying the problem on their own first.

Extensions for our problem were placed in our extensions tent.

Overall this went very well! Definitely an idea that I'll keep in mind for my own classroom.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! 

As a preservice teacher, I have been doing a LOT of teaching activities by myself and as part of a group, and with all of this spring cleaning going on around me, I've been looking at my growing pile of "MUST KEEP" class projects and thinking there must be a better way to do this...Then it hit me! I'm going to make a blog version of all of my favourite projects!

I'm hoping to keep somewhat up to date on all of my "keepworthy" lesson plans so I have something for myself and others to reference without all of the clutter in my house! Please feel free to comment on or use any of the lessons that I post here.

Stay tuned!