Climbing Mountain Climbers (Learning about Everest)

What could be better than learning about friction and landforms while crafting a fun hands-on toy? Not much if you're a 9- or 5-year old boy. I speak from experience.

My sons had a blast with this.

Here's how we made our mountain climbers … that actually climb!

For each mountain climber, you'll need:

Mountain climber template (download my free PDF from Google Drive here)

Heavyweight cardstock paper

Scissors

Yarn

Plastic drinking straw

Penny

2 pony beads

clear tape

Markers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.

Profile picture of your child's head (optional)

How to Make a Climbing Mountain Climber

1. Print the mountain climber onto cardstock and cut out. If desired, cut out the face and glue your child's photo in its place to personalize.

2. Color the climber.

3. Cut two short lengths of plastic drinking straw and tape each vertically (parallel from each other) onto the back of your climber's body.

4. Under them, tape the penny for weight.

5. Now cut a long length of yarn. Thread it through one length of the straw and down through the other.

6. Tie a pony bean on each end of the yarn. This will prevent the yarn from slipping back through the straws.

7. Now place the loop above the head of the climber over a door handle.

8. With each end of the yarn in one hand, pull the yarn apart and watch your climber travel up toward the door handle. That's the summit!

9. Bring your hands and the yarn strands back toward each other and watch the climber descend the "mountain" now that you've reduced friction.

Read Up on Mount Everest

To explain the massive feat of climbing Mount Everest, we turned to some great authors and books. My sons enjoyed these and we learned a ton … like how incredibly dangerous the trek really is, how long it takes, and how trying it is on the human body. Count us out!

Want to extend the learning? Have kids use register tape or post-it notes to tack up along the wall with milestones a climber would encounter on their journey up the mountain - from basecamp, to tree line, to snow line, to ice falls, and the summit. Kids will have fun slowly working their climber up to each. 

Homemade Microscope

My husband recently cashed in some credit card rewards and got my sons a microscope. Before they really got into using it, I thought it would be fun to make our own so they could begin to understand how it works.

Our simple recreation teaches the principles of light reflection, surface tension, and magnification. And it uses simple household objects you're likely to find in your recycle bin.

Supplies

Empty wide-mouthed glass jar with a smooth bottom

Lid for the jar

Nail

Hammer

Clear hard plastic from food packaging

Scissors

Tape

Aluminum foil

Chipboard (think empty cereal box)

Glue

Paper

Fine-grain salt

Water

Toothpick or medicine dropper

How to Make It

1. Poke a hole in the middle of the jar lid. We hammered a nail through ours with a cutting board underneath. You'll want your hole to be big enough to see through (think half the size of a paper punch hole). Ours was a little small.

2. Cut a small rectangular piece of plastic from food packaging (we used a plastic strawberry container).

3. Tape it over the hole in your lid. Set aside.

4. Cut a strip (say 1 1/2-inch wide) out of chipboard. Glue the aluminum foil to the cardboard shiny side up. You'll want to fold the strip at 1/3rd its length so it fits inside the upside down jar; cut, if necessary. It will look like short ramp.

5. Put the foil ramp on top of your sheet of paper and put the upside down jar on top of it.

6. Turn the paper to shift the foil ramp so that when you're looking down through the jar light is reflected up into your eye.

7. Put a few granules of salt onto the bottom of the jar. Make sure they are dispersed and not clumped together.

8. Now using the medicine dropper or toothpick dipped in water, add a droplet to the lid, on top of the clear plastic directly over the hole. If you're using the toothpick to pick up and dispense water, you'll have to build this droplet.

9. Now hold the lid over the salt and peer through the droplet hole. You'll be able to see how the flecks of salt suddenly look like geometric shapes. You can move the lid closer or farther away from the salt to see if that increases the magnification.

This great idea came from Mr. Wizard, who I remember fondly from my childhood. This video clip walks you through all the steps and an explanation of the science behind why this works.

After School Linky (2-2)

Welcome to the party!

This linky always delivers great ideas, advice, and activities and since we got a foot of snow yesterday, today is a snow day. The inspiration is ESPECIALLY appreciated!

 Barack Obama Paper Bag Puppet at Kids Creative Chaos

 Math is Fun - Valentine's Day LEGO Graphing at JDaniel4's Mom

 40 Free Pretend Play Printables at KC Edventures

 Valentine Sight Word Heart Delivery at Growing Book by Book

 Our Dental Unit at Royal Little Lambs

 Word Tic-Tac-Toe at Finding Teachable Moments

Weather Cats with Hats Activities at A Kinders Garten Vintage Homeschool

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

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!

Beginning Sounds Match Up

My five-year-old's alternative kindergarten teacher has been working with the kids on phonics and I'm blown away by how fast my son is picking them up. While he's pretty good at remembering each letter's sound, I wondered how he'd do identifying the beginning sounds of words.

To test him, I grabbed 12 household items (e.g. iPad, apple, scissors, puzzle pieces, LEGOs, etc.) and placed them around the edge of our round kitchen table.

Then I grabbed the letter cards I made for the Alphabet Blackout game (the link to download them free from Google Drive is in the blog article). I only gave him the twelve letters that started the words for each object on the table.

It was up to him to circle the table and place the correct letter card next to each object. He worked so hard to get them right, slowly saying the words out loud and then looking through his small stack of cards.

He only struggled with the orange (O) and yarn (Y). All the others came to him fairly easily.

We'll definitely be doing this activity again. It's cheap, simple, and requires 5 minutes of prep, which is perfect for a busy parent!

Simple Machines: DIY Pulley

We went to a local manufacturing museum recently. The boys loved it. One of the hands-on exhibits had them pulling weights attached to a pulley to simulate horsepower. They roamed the museum but kept coming back to pull those ropes.

That moment precipitated this one.

We made our own pulley with supplies we had at home.

Supplies

paper punch

empty ribbon spool

empty, clean small plastic bowl (e.g. empty fruit cup, etc.)

yarn

pencil or small wooden dowel rod

tape (optional)

small objects to put in the bowl

stairway

Step 1

Punch three holes around the edge of the bowl, making an invisible triangle between them.

Step 2

Tie short lengths of yarn onto each hole. Gather them about 4 inches above the bowl and tie together. Make sure the bowl is level. Snip the excess yarn.

Step 3

Tie a long length of yarn onto the knot binding the three yarn lengths. Wind the yarn around the empty ribbon spool.

Step 4

Add something to the bucket (e.g. LEGOs, erasers, etc.).

Step 5

Thread the pencil through the spool hole and place between two stair spindles.

Step 6

Use tape to secure the ends of the pencil, if desired. (This was especially helpful for my 5-year-old.)

Step 7

Regulate the speed with which you lower the bowl by holding the end of the yarn and slowly releasing it, making the spool spin.

Step 8

Listen to your kids exclaim how cool this is!

This idea came from Kids Activities Blog.