Boo Bowling

Draw a simple face on a piece of paper, attach to any type of stand alone container and you have a set of pins!

Halloween and our study of 3 dimensional shapes happen at the same time.  Here is  a fun, hands on Halloween and shape game.  Create a set of ghost pins by drawing a simple face on a white piece of paper and taping it to cylindrical shaped containers.  I used oatmeal containers and 1 coffee can.  Make 10 ghosts.

Use any ball or sphere to knock the pins down.

You can also create a graph of how many cylinders each student knocked down to teach graph interpretation and probability.

If you want to be extra thematic the students can wear a cone or pyramid shaped witch's hat or birthday hat and/or try using a cube or rectangular prism (made from appropriately sized and shaped boxes, such as a cereal box or  tissue container) to knock the cylinders down.  You can also graph which shape was used to knock the cylinders down and determine which shape is best at rolling.

Happy Bowling!

If you have feelings and you know it...

Dr. Jean does her own version of the song "If Your Happy and You Know It".

During a recent unit about feelings we did that song and I modified it a bit to include more feelings.  You don't need Dr. Jean's versions if you know the tune of "If Your Happy and You Know It."

Here are the modified verses:

If your scared and you know it hug yourself.

If your proud and you know it kiss your brain.

If your silly and you know it wiggle all over.

If your excited and you know it shout "Hooray!"

If you have feeling and you know it do them all.

We also have a song for the feeling angry to the same tune.

If your angry and you know it count to 10.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10! (repeat)

If your angry and you know it,  

It's okay, you can control it!

If your angry and you know it count to 10.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!

Additional verses:

If your angry and you know it, walk away. (pantomime walking away)

If your angry and you know it take a break.  (rest head on hands)

Enjoy your feelings!

Personal Space

Along the same lines as controlling our volcanoes is being aware of personal space.
Another great book by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman is called Personal Space Camp.
In the story, Principal Goodkid guides a group of kids through a variety of activities that help them become aware of personal space.  One of the ideas I adapted for my classroom is putting a hula hoop around a child to help him/her notice his/her personal space.  I found small hula hoops that I keep in a handy location near the class rug.  When a child is losing control of his/her body and bothering others I put the hula hoop around him/her and say, "This is your space, you need to stay inside this space and no one else can come inside your space."  This also works for kids who have a hard time with others getting too close to them.
So far it's really helping with a physical model of how much space a person should take on the rug.
I hope this helps anyone else dealing with space issues.