Making Lady Liberty’s Torch

I cannot imagine what it must be like for immigrants to see the Statue of Liberty on their journey toward U.S. citizenship. To help my son understand all that Lady Liberty symbolizes, we read a few great books.

The first story, a fiction book by Eve Bunting, did an amazing job of talking about the symbolism of this great landmark. (It was hard for me to get through the book without choking up.) A family takes an annual ferry ride to Liberty Island at the request of the grandmother to commemorate the Statue of Liberty's birthday with a picnic.

When we were finished, I pulled out Marion Dane Bauer’s Ready-to-Read Level 1 Wonders of America book. Unlike the first book, this easy reader talked about the history and construction of the statue. My son was amazed to read that American schoolchildren donated dimes and nickels to buy the pedestal on which Lady Liberty stands!

After reading, we made our own version of the Statue of Liberty’s torch. I got this idea from Judy Press’ book Around-the-World Art & Activities.

What you need:

An empty paper towel tube

A small disposable cup

Aluminum foil

School glue and gluestick

Orange construction paper

2 toothpicks (optional)

1 flameless tealight

Cut a hole in the bottom of the disposable cup, the same diameter of the paper towel tube. Have your child slide it down the tube (1). Then, poke toothpicks in an X configuration through the top of the paper towel tube (2) about ½-inch down from the top of the tube (this will be what the tealight sits on). Clip off the ends of the toothpicks that are sticking out. Add school glue to the ends to secure them.

Tear pieces of orange construction paper. Glue the jagged paper to the inside of the top of the tube for the torch’s flame (3). Now, cover the tube and cup with glue, wrapping wide strips of aluminum foil over the entire torch (4). When the glue dries, add the flameless tealight to the top.

Telling Time Printable Card Game

Before my son’s last playdate with his best buddy, I must have answered “what time is it now, Mom?” and “how much time before he gets here?” a zillion times. (sigh) Finally, I reminded him that he could tell time, too. 

I had to jog his memory about which hand told the hour and minutes, but otherwise, he patiently counted by fives around the clock to tell the time in minutes.

To develop his time-telling skills even more, I made a time-telling card game based on Old Maid. I created 33 cards, 16 of which are analog and digital clocks with the same time and 1 dead battery card.

Download the game cards here.

After printing on cardstock and cutting them out, we were ready to play! ... Well, almost.

First, we read Telling Time by Jules Older, who did a MUCH better job of identifying digital and analog clocks and explaining each hands’ function on the analog clock than I did.

After we’d finished the book, I shuffled and dealt the entire deck to my son and I. (The cards won’t divide evenly; that’s okay.) When my son had all of his cards, I told him to lay them out so I could help him find the digital and analog clocks with the same times. I did the same thing with my hand and those matches were set aside.

Then we held our cards and picked one card from each other’s hand, alternating turns, matching the clocks and putting the pairs aside. The objective is not to get stuck with the dead battery card. The player left holding that card is the loser.

My son LOVED playing the “Time is Running Out” game I'd made and, with each game we play, seems to be getting better at reading the clocks.

Remove the dead battery card from the deck, and play these other fun children’s games:

Go Fish!

Memory

From Phonics to Words with Slide Cards

Have you ever known you needed to do something that no one else knew about, but you still felt guilty? That’s how I’ve felt about posting this activity for months now. Literally months. This should have been my very first post ever. These slide cards are the most useful activity that I’ve ever created for my son.

He did a great job learning phonics in kindergarten. But blending those phonics into words was a little more challenging for him. At the kindergarten curriculum meeting, the teachers shared a nifty little trick to help early readers blend the sounds they learned. Thankfully, midway through the year, I hadn’t forgotten it.

First, I made a few of these … then a few more … and more and more, at my son’s request. I don’t know what the cards were called that the kindergarten teachers shared, but I’ve dubbed these amazingly simple things ‘slide cards.’

The basic principle is that by showing a child one letter at a time, they are able to concentrate on the sound it makes before they see the next letter/phonic. It’s easier for them to blend the sounds gradually rather than 1) feeling overwhelmed and giving up or 2) guessing the word.

Simply download and print the first 15 cards (5 pages) on cardstock, flip over and download and print the next 15 (5 pages) on the back. Then grab 15 regular-size security mailing envelopes and seal them all. Now cut one of the short ends off of each. Insert one card in all the envelopes and you’re ready to work with your son/daughter on blending sounds. Just pull the cards out slowly and make sure your child says the first sound before revealing the next letter. When they’ve blended all the letters/sounds together, reveal the picture and watch your child’s face light up with pride!

TIP: It works best to print the cards so that the type on the back is upside down. That way you can simply flip the card over and immediately practice the next word, without having to reposition the card in the envelope.

Now allow me to apologize for not sharing this activity sooner. Until I switched to new design software, I could not share the original cards I made for my son. I hope a few of you will find these PDFs (or just the idea) to be as helpful as we have.

OJ Carton Lantern & Paul Revere’s Ride

There’s something to be said for a legend … and a great poem … and transforming junk into a craft. The combination of these three things puts this activity among my favorites.

My son’s class of first graders is learning about early America, the Declaration of Independence, the flag, etc. So when I saw Phyllis’ post over at All Things Beautiful, I knew a lesson in Paul Revere’s ride would fit right in with the history my son was being exposed to at school.

It’s been ages since I read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. I did remember the line “One if by land, two if by sea,” though. And I had a sneaking suspicion that my son would light up (pun intended) at the idea of using lanterns in a church tower as a signal.

I was right.

Before we got crafty, we read Longfellow’s poem. The book I chose has amazing illustrations that practically have readers holding their breath with suspense, feeling the damp night air, and hearing the whinny of Revere’s horse.

When reading, I stopped periodically to put the poem in layman’s terms for my son. Despite the complex language, he was engrossed.

                     

When we finished the poem, I gave him an empty orange juice carton and told him it was time to make a lantern similar to the ones used to signal Revere.

First he traced some rectangles on each side of the carton. Then he cut them out. Lastly, he covered the lantern in black duct tape.

I punched a few holes in the lantern on opposite sides.

To make the “glass,” he cut some pieces of vellum paper and I glued them into three of the windows with a few dots of low-temp glue. We left one window in the back open.

Then I had my son thread wire through the holes and twist it together on the inside of the lantern for a handle.

All that was left to do was add a flickering flameless tealight! 

Add and Subtract with Roman Numerals

My son’s class is working on telling time. His homework assignment one night was to find and count the number of clocks in our home. He also had to draw one of them. Of course, he chose the clock with roman numerals. This got me thinking. Maybe he’d enjoy learning about roman numerals. And thus, this activity was born.

Our library had an amazing book that was both fun to read and extremely helpful (I never learned roman numerals so I was totally clueless). 

From David Adler’s book, I made a cheat sheet for my son translating the values of each numeral.

I = 1

V = 5

X = 10

L = 50

C = 100

D = 500

M = 1,000

Then, I made a game board and playing cards. I laminated the board to use over and over with a dry-erase marker.

Download a PDF of the game board, playing cards, and cheat sheet here.

The game board has a reminder about three important rules:

When the same number is repeated one after the other, the numbers are added.

When a larger number is followed by a smaller number, the numbers are added.

When a smaller number is followed by a larger number, the smaller number is subtracted from the larger.

Since my son is only in first grade, we did not use the “D” (500) and “M” (1,000) cards I made; I’ll save those for when he’s ready to add and subtract larger numbers. After reading the first half of Fun with Roman Numerals (the more you read, the more complex the combination of numerals becomes), I placed three cards on the game board and asked my son to write their values underneath with a fine-tip dry-erase marker.

To start, I placed the cards in descending order by value so no roman numeral was followed by one that had a higher value. Doing this meant that the numbers would always be added. I gave my son a 1-100 numbers grid for help when he needed it. Once he had the answer, he wrote it at the bottom of the game board. We cleared the dry-erase marks on the board with a paper towel.

Gradually I added different cards, progressively making the addition harder. Eventually, I placed a numeral with a higher value in the middle or at the end, so my son would have some subtraction practice. This tripped him up at first, but eventually he caught on and began thinking about whether greater than/less than numerals should be added or subtracted.

Teaching a first-grader roman numerals was tough but my son loved it. Now he can not only read our kitchen clock, but also will be able to tell me what number Super Bowl it is this year!