After School Linky Party! (6/17)

Welcome to the After School Linky!

Last week's party had some great advice, fun activities, and useful lessons.

I love the diversity! Here are some of my favorites from last week.

Top 10 Flash Card Games and DIY Flash Cards at True Aim.

(Traditional flash card study has always elicited moans and groans here.

That's why I LOVE these ideas for making flash cards fun!)

Make a Marshmallow Shooter for Father's Day Fun at B-Inspired Mama.

(I've made these and its the best cheap fun on the market.

Girls and boys alike - of ALL ages - will LOVE this!)

Cotton Reel Car at Science Sparks.

(This is equal parts fun and engineering. Awesome!)

Shadow Science at Homeschool Escapade.

(Shadows have long since fascinated kids. Zelda turned observations into education. Genius!)

Shoes and Learning to Tie Them! by Growing Book by Book.

(Tying shoes is h-a-r-d! This list of books is great to prep your child.)

When There's An Active Shooter in a Public Place at Creekside Learning.

(While we never want to imagine we'll be in a position to need this advice,

it's great that someone is offering it. Thanks, Julie!)

Cohosted by

The Educators' Spin On It

Little Wonders' Days

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

This Reading Mama

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, homeschool or on the weekend! When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board or Feature on our After School Party next week! Don't forget to follow along and join our After School Enrichment Community.

Proofreading with DIY Punctuation Stamps

What is it about stamps? I've known for years that the most mundane learning activities seem less of a chore when there's an ink pad involved (for evidence, check out our Missing Letters Mystery). Don't ask me why.

To practice punctuation, we reviewed seven punctuation marks: apostrophe, comma, exclamation point, period, colon, and semicolon.

In order to do this, we read Punctuation Takes a Vacation, a clever book about a classroom of students that get a taste of life without any punctuation. This is my favorite kind of children's book - non-fiction disguised as fiction with playful graphics and a creative storyline. I enjoyed it as much as my son did.

And just as importantly, it was the perfect complement to this activity.

I printed two pages of sentences with missing punctuation. Download them here.

Then I made some punctuation stamps.

These were surprisingly easy. I used six wine corks that I'd been saving for ages (a friend mailed me a gift and used them as packaging), six 1-inch wooden discs, 3mm craft foam, and a low-temp glue gun.

I cut the punctuation marks out of the foam, using a hole punch when possible to get perfect circles, and glued them to the wooden discs. Then, I glued each disc to a cork. NOTES: Make sure your stamps are the mirror image of your punctuation marks. Also, you only need one stamp for the comma and apostrophe.

When it came time to fix the missing punctuation on the sentences I'd prepared, my son was ready. He moved through them quickly, only stopping a few times to ask questions for help.

He happily stamped and stamped and stamped.

Catching and Plotting Rainfall

If you're on Pinterest, you've seen this amazing rain gauge project. The simplicity, short material list, and learning opportunity have made it a favorite among kids and parents for years - my son and I included.

To make it you'll need a clear plastic bottle (like a 2-liter soda bottle) or a large water bottle. We used a Smart Water bottle. Remove the label. Have a ruler, scissors, and a permanent fine-tip marker handy.

Cut the top of the bottle off with a knife or scissors; young children should leave this up to grown-ups to do. Now align a ruler so the end of the ruler is at the bottom of the bottle and make small marks with the marker up the side of the bottle where the inches or centimeter lines are.

Now take the top of the bottle and place the spout upside down inside the bottle. With a little pressure, it will fit snugly.

Head outside and find the ideal spot to place your rain gauge (away from trees, etc.). Dig a shallow hole and secure the bottle inside it.

Now wait … and wait … and wait. Apparently making a rain gauge was just what we needed to chase away the stormy skies. While this spring has been extremely wet (parts of our city were sandbagging two weeks ago as the river threatened to exceed its banks), since my son made his rain gauge, not a drop has fallen. (What's that they say about the best laid plans?)

When it does, though, he'll be ready with this Daily Rain Record.

Each day, he'll plot the amount our rain gauge catches by drawing a dot on the line. Then he'll check all the boxes that apply to the type of rainfall (e.g. mist, downpour, shower).

Download a PDF of this Daily Rain Record free here.

When he has seven days of data, he'll draw lines between the dots, total the rainfall, and find the average by dividing the total by seven.

You didn't think I was just going to make this a science lesson did you? (he he) I just had to sneak a little math in.

Looking for a great book to read to pair with this activity? We read Elizabeth Miles' Watching the Weather: Rain. It covered why we need rain, helped us review the water cycle, and explained drought, floods, and acid rain - all in terms a soon-to-be third grader could understand.

After School Linky Party (6/10)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Last week's party had such a great mix of ideas and activities - ways to learn the alphabet, enjoy the summer, and keep learning math, science, and language arts.

Here are just a handful of my favorites from last week's party!

Perspective from ArtClubBlog.

(This art project shows kids how perspective changes based on distance or viewing angle.

Even left-brained kids will love this!)

What Causes a Thunderstorm? at Life with Moore Babies.

(Kids get to make their own thunderstorm in a clear box! SEE the science? It's awesome!)

Bullseye Ball Math Busy Bag at Finding the Teachable Moments.

(This portable game is simple to put together and great at sneaking in math.

Even the storage bag is a manipulative!)

Hopscotch Learning at Homeschool Escapade.

(Learning sight words just got a whole lot more fun with sidewalk chalk.

Perfect for kinesthetic learners!)

Say & Color: Antonym Avenue (FREEBIE) at Speech Time Fun.

(Before kids get coloring, they have to express an antonym for the words listed. Great free printable!)

Vacation Workstation...A Brain Playground by love2learn2day.

(A simple file folder has been transformed into the ultimate summer learning guide!)

Cohosted by

The Educators' Spin On It

Little Wonders' Days

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

This Reading Mama

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, homeschool or on the weekend! When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board or Feature on our After School Party next week! Don't forget to follow along and join our After School Enrichment Community.

Link up your After School Activities, Crafts and Adventures! We'd love to see them!

Drop, Pop, & Measure [Math with Pom Pom Poppers]

Some activities are a sure thing when it comes to fun. This is one of them. I knew it from the second I saw the Pom Pom Poppers made by Laura at Come Together Kids.

Supplies you need are scissors, plastic disposable drinking cups (two per popper), balloons (one per popper), and some pom pom balls.

Nest two cups together, one inside the other (two cups provides more stability). Cut the bottom third of the cups off with scissors and discard. Now take a balloon and tie it closed (do not inflate). Cut the tip of the balloon off (the end opposite the knot). Stretch the balloon over the rim (not the cut side) of the two cut plastic cups. Laura's tutorial is amazing; check it out here.

Once the poppers were ready, my sons could barely contain themselves. My oldest boy's mouth was like a machine gun shooting out question after question. "What are we going to do with these?" "They're drums right?" "Is it another kind of instrument?"

Without uttering a word, I grabbed a bag of pom poms, dropped one in the cup, pulled the tie on the balloon back and popped the ball into the air.

My sons' eyes got big and their chins dropped.

I grabbed a measuring tape and some blue painters tape to make a line to stand behind. The goal was to see who could launch a pom pom the farthest.

My oldest son recorded the distances in inches.

The simple act of documenting the launch distances had so many wonderful lessons:

• How many pom poms of any given color were launched?
• Can you turn those inches into feet?
• Can you put them in order from least distance to greatest distance?
• How much farther did your farthest pom pom go than the next farthest, etc.?
• What was the average distance of your pom poms?

As we continue to get hammered with more and more rain, I was thrilled to provide an indoor learning activity that provided so much fun!