Transfer of Energy Marble Roll

This week and last week have been nuts. It's taken a massive amount of organization and a whole lot of crockpot dinners to keep us going. Despite the way our schedule has blown up, I'm still fitting in learning opportunities; it's a priority.

This one takes 5 minutes and uses two supplies: a wooden ruler and 3 (or more) glass marbles.

Don't let its simplicity fool you. This short science experiment packs a lot of educational punch.

Set it Up
Place one marble on the end of the ruler in its recessed middle.

Place two more marbles in the middle; make sure they touch.

Make a Hypothesis
What will happen when I flick the single marble and send it careening down the marble toward the other two? Will all the marbles rolls off the ruler?

Test Your Theory
Give the single marble a nudge and watch as it rolls down the ruler. When it hits the first marble, it stops. The energy from the marble is transferred through the second marble to the third marble, which suddenly begins rolling to the opposite end of the ruler. WOW!

This great experiment came from Frugal Fun 4 Boys. This blogger's child(ren) experimented with different numbers of marbles, flicking the single marble at as many as four marbles that were stationary in the middle of the ruler. Visit her blog to read about their findings!

After School Linky (10-12)

Welcome to the party!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Monday!

Here are a handful of my favorite activities and ideas shared during last week's linky.

 Stained Glass Art Activity from Mosswood Connections

Counting Coins Scavenger Hunt at School Time Snippets

Homemade Wobblebot at Research Parent

How to Start an Engineering Club at School from Planet Smarty Pants

Making a 3D Hologram Projector from Pragmatic Mom

Hands-On Activities with Math Story Books at Live Over C's

Roll-A-Halloween Story from All Day Everyday Mom

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Creative Family Fun

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

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, home school, 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 and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks.

Sticky Ball Sight Word Target Toss

Each week of kindergarten, my son's class is working on two new sight words. I'm not wild about flash cards so I wanted to drum up another way for him to practice at home - something that would get my active boy up and moving, something that would be F-U-N.

This little game met all the criteria.

Supplies
Suction-cup balls from the party supply store
Target (download the one I made for free here)
Paper
Lamination (optional)
Markers (if laminated, use dry-erase)
Tape

Prep
Print and cut out as targets, one for every word you want to practice. If you'd like to reuse them (like I do), laminate each. With a marker (dry-erase on the laminated targets), write the sight word in the middle of your bulls eye target. Tape them to the sliding glass door so that each target is visible on the other side of the door. Your child will be reading the target through the glass.

Variation: Don't have a deck/porch with a sliding glass door, tape them to an interior wall and have your child use them as NERF gun sight word practice!

Play
Hand your child the suction-cup balls and call out the words on the targets. It's up to him/her to read the targets, take aim, and toss the ball. If he/she misses the whole target, they must try again and again until it is hit. 

Keep going until all the words have been called out! 

This is great way to make those sight words really stick in kids' brains!

After School Linky (10-5)

Welcome to the party!

There are so many good ideas shared here each week. Thanks to all who link-up, browse, pin, and follow.

Here are some of my favorites from last week's party.

Money Math Problems for 1st-3rd Grade at Planet Smarty Pants

Chemical Reactions with Pennies from Creative Family Fun

Cool Inspirational Videos to Watch with Your Kids at Pragmatic Mom

Free CVCE Word Family Ladders at 3 Dinosaurs

Fall Leaves Sudoku {free printable} at Gift of Curiosity

Witches Brew - Halloween Science for Kids from Science Kiddo

DIY Stethoscope at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Creative Family Fun

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

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, home school, 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 and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks.

Plate Tectonics on the Move {printable board game}

My fifth grade son is learning about the ice age this year in school. My goal is to always to piggy-back on what he's learning in school with some fun after school activities.

Since you can't learn about continental drift without a foundation of knowledge about plate tectonics, I thought a fun game on the topic of moving plates and the resulting land forms would be neat.

Prep
Download the three-page PDF of the game board and die free from Google Drive here. Print the PDF onto cardstock.

Since home printers won't print full-bleed (i.e. all the way to the edge of the paper), trim the white border from the two pages of the game board where they'll join. Tape in place.

Cut the die out. Score the lines for smooth folds with the back end of a butter knife. Fold and use a low-temp glue gun to assemble.

Grab two (or more depending on the number of players) different items to use as game pieces (e.g. buttons, coins, poker chips, LEGO minifigures, etc.). We used some full-body photos of ourselves that were laminated and put in large binder clips.

Play
Put the game pieces on the START. The youngest player rolls the die first. The player must determine what plate tectonic movement creates the land form or event that was rolled on the die. The game piece is moved to the first occurrence of that particular movement (convergent, divergent, or lateral). 

If the player rolls, "LOSE A TURN," the game piece remains where it is and the next player rolls. If the player rolls "ROLL & MOVE 2," they will move twice, to the next two movement types resulting from the land form rolled.

The player must roll the land form/event that puts them at the final square to win. The first player to arrive at the finish is declared the winner.

Read

Before my son played the game I made, he read a book that helped to explain concepts like oceanic and continental crust, the Earth's layers, and what happens when plate tectonics move. The comic book style of this book kept my son engaged from cover to cover!