Rainy Day Experiment

Every kid loves their time outside to run around. Sometimes it’s hard for them to understand how rain works and why it is important. All they know is that if it is raining outside, they can’t go play. Here is a fun way to teach children about the process of rain and the importance of it.

Items needed:

• Clear vase
• Food coloring
• Shaving cream
• 4 Small containers (holds 1 to 2 ounces of water)
• Water
• Eye dropper

Step 1: Add 1 ounce of water to each of your small containers. Add different colors of food coloring to the small containers (1 color per container). It is recommended that you use 10 drops of each color, and when using purple use only 5 drops.

Step 2: Fill a clear glass with water about 2/3 full, then top it off with a decent amount of shave cream.

Step 3: Using the eyedropper, drop the different colors of water onto the shave cream cloud. Keep in mind the closer you drop to the edge, the faster it will appear as rain from the cloud.

Tip: This is the perfect time to teach your class that the water is like the air and the shaving cream is like the clouds. As the clouds get saturated with water they produce rain.

 

 

It’s not delivery… It’s Cardboard! Pizza Craft for Daycares

Throw a Pretend Pizza Party for your students with this quick and easy craft from Nikkie at Apple Tree Prep! All you need is cardboard, scissors, glue or a glue stick, and different colors of construction paper to represent the toppings.

Depending on the age of your students, you may need to prepare the toppings and crust of the pizza ahead of time. If students are capable of cutting on their own let them prepare the toppings themselves. This will give their pizza a unique look and provide them with some extra cutting practice too!

The cardboard should be cut into a triangle shape to resemble a pizza slice. You can make the pizza slices any size you would like. Give each student a slice and have them write their name on the bottom. Now slices are ready to be flipped over and covered with toppings.

Toppings can include your typical pizza toppings, like cheese and pepperoni, or you can let your students get creative by adding anything they want. They might get a little silly with their topping combinations, but the good news is that you don’t have to eat these pizzas!

If you decide to use glue instead of glue sticks you may want to remind students that a small dab of glue is the perfect amount for each topping. If not, you will need to include some time for the glue to dry before playing with the pizzas. You could say you are putting them in the oven while you wait for them to dry.

Once the glue is dry, students can take turns serving each other slices or open a pretend pizzeria where they create new pizzas and topping combinations! They will love showing off their creations!

You can share your Craft Ideas with us too by following us on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook. Just send us a tweet, a pin or leave us a comment with a picture of your craft. You can also share your ideas by commenting down below. We love to hear from you!

Plastic Easter Eggs Game Ideas

 

Easter is quickly approaching and students are in need of some new learning games and activities as the year draws to an end. We have some quick and easy ideas to share with you that are sure to be “egg-cellent” for your students!

Kids love those colorful, plastic Easter eggs and now teachers will too! They are a fun and inexpensive way to create games and learning activities for the spring season! You will need the eggs that can be opened and split completely in half. Any size, color, and even shape would be great for these activities. You can find the eggs at any local grocery store around Easter time for a low price.

Our first egg activity is perfect for little ones who are learning their colors! Begin by taking as many eggs as you would like and splitting them in two. Eggs can be placed on the floor, on a table or on any flat surface. We suggest placing them on the floor if you are going to have a large group working at the same time and a table for smaller groups or individual work. Mix up the halves until there is a good mix of colors. Now have your students rematch up the eggs to their missing half. You could also have students separate the full eggs by color into baskets or trays or on top of a piece of matching colored construction paper after finding their missing pieces.

Another fun idea for the little ones is an alphabet matching game with upper case and lower case letters. Simply add the uppercase letter on one half of the egg and the lower case on the other half. Students will then need to match up the letters to give each egg one upper case half and one lower case half of each letter. Letters can be added in permanent marker or with alphabet stickers.

Not challenging enough for your class? Here are a few ideas to take it to the next level!

Write different words that can be formed into contractions onto each egg half. For example, “can” on one half and “not” on the other. Place the contraction inside on a piece of paper. When they open their egg they find the answer, “can’t”.

The same concept can be used for math problems as well. Put a number on each egg half and have students add, subtract, multiply or divide the numbers. You can match these up ahead of time and provide the answer inside for them or just let students match up the numbers and egg colors to create different problems to solve.

Try out one of these Egg Games and let us know what you think! Your students should be “egg-static” about the new classroom games!

Multicultural paper and art supplies for your students

You may be surprised to find out that children seek out their individual identity as young as pre-school to early elementary school ages. Children understand the concept of being validated or considered to be normal at an early age. Physiologists have shown that activities such as in class art projects are the best ways to instill a sense of self validation in your students.

Today’s daycares, elementary schools, and after school programs are highly diverse and include different ethnicities and cultures. Due to the diverse ethnicites basic black, brown, white and tan colored art supplies, such as construction paper or crayons, are no longer able to encompass each individual child. In classrooms children are taught to work with the supplies made available for them.

A very popular beginning of the school year activity is to have students create look alike body forms to help introduce themselves. A child may find this project difficult if the color they believe represents their skin tone is not available. This can make a student frustrated and confused as to why what they look like is not available or considered normal enough to be available. To prevent these identity issues at an early age we are thrilled to offer our Multicultural Construction Paper in two convenient sizes.

For every day coloring activities we also would like to introduce our Multicultural Crayon packs. We offer larger crayons for artists with little hands as well as normal sized crayons for our advanced doodlers. We have expanded our Multicultural line to include additional art supplies such as colored pencils and paint. These supplies are great to have on hand for classrooms, art programs, and day care facilities.

“A school needs to be a place for all children, not based on the idea that they are all the same, but that they are all different”

-Loris Malaguzzi

Indoor activities for Preschoolers

Little ones can get antsy quickly when they are kept inside all day. They need a good activity to help them get their wiggles out and to keep you, teacher or parent, from going a little crazy too. Here’s a fun one that students are guaranteed to enjoy!

Create an indoor obstacle course!

You can even let your students help you create it. All you need is a room with enough space to play, a few obstacles for students to pass through, and a lot of team spirit to cheer on your class as they make their way through the course.

Start by making sure that the area you are placing your obstacle course in is clear and safe for the students. This might mean moving a table or two or making sure items are picked up off the floor. Next you can begin to construct your course.

Obstacles can be created from anything you want. You can easily use items around your classroom or in the toy chest. You could even incorporate some class material. For example, they could write their name in cursive or complete a math problem on a sketch pad as one of the obstacles. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the obstacles you choose! This also allows you to create a new course every time. Students will be excited to see what you’ve come up with on rainy days. Plus, it’s a great way to make sure they are getting their daily exercise.

Here’s an example course:

 Hula hoop 5 times, crawl underneath the table, circle a chair 3 times, correctly answer the math problem, do 10 jumping jacks, go down the slide, make a basket in the basketball goal and sit down. The first team to have everyone through the obstacle course and seated quietly wins!

Foamnasium products are great for indoor play and obstacle courses!

Be sure to check those out HERE!

If you need to keep the noise level to a minimum, have your students cheer silently. The faces and expressions are sure to make you giggle as they cheer on their team without making any sounds! This will allow them to show their team spirit, maintain good sportsmanship and not disturb nearby classes at the same time.

Planning on trying out an indoor obstacle course? We want to see what you come up with! Send us pictures of your course and you may see yours featured in a future post! Stay tuned for more indoor activities and ideas for those yucky weather days.

Decorating for the Holidays

Christmas is quickly approaching and the decorating has begun. No kid can resist the reds and greens of the Christmas season! Get them excited for the holidays with one of our Christmas Bulletin Board Sets. Whether you want to create a winter wonderland, complete with snowflakes and snowmen, or you want to show your kids the joy of Christmas with the Peanuts gang, we have a set for you! Our wide selection of Bulletin Board Sets contains a perfect set for every classroom!

Help put your students in the holiday spirit this winter with these holiday decorations.

Be sure to share your classroom decorating with us on the PureFUN! Facebook page. While you’re there, like us for all PureFUN! updates and follow us on Pinterest for more great classroom decorating ideas.

www.purefunsupply.com

Daycare Floor Carpets: Literacy & Counting

Get hooked on Literacy and Counting with these fun fishy friends! Students are sure to enjoy a make-believe fishing trip where they can catch more than just fish on the Fishing for Literacy Rectangle Carpet. 

This carpet has it all! It features ten brightly colored fish that have their own number from 1-10. The fish swim atop a blue background and are surrounded by a circle of bubbles that each hold a letter of the alphabet in a fun color. The alphabet bubbles along the outside of the rug would make a perfect setting for circle time! Each student can be placed on their own bubble letter or even their own numbered fish!

The Fishing for Literacy Rectangle Carpet comes in three sizes. The smallest size measures 3 ft 10 in x 5 ft 5 in, the next size up measures 5 ft 5 in x 7 ft 8 in and the largest size measures 7 ft 8 in. x 10 ft 10 in. The great variety of sizes allows you to pick the carpet that will be just the right size for your classroom! Hurry and order the perfect carpet for your classroom while they are still in stock!

Dramatic Dress Up Costumes for Kids!

There’s no better way to expand your students’ imaginations than to give them some costumes! With our comfortable and colorful costumes your students will be able to take on any role they imagine. From veterinarian to chef, we’ve got it all!

Help them get started on figuring out what they want to be when they grow up. They’ll love seeing themselves look the part and getting to play out their role. Costumes are also a great way to get kids interacting with each other. Your classroom will be transformed into a whole new setting in just minutes as your students’ imaginations soar! You might even want to join in on the fun!

Student Incentives: Arm Charms

Need a new way to reward you students for their hard work? Try out the Arm Charms! Stickers may start to get old after a while but Arm Charms are a motivator your kids will love! Arm charms take inspiration to a new level with their fun phrases, colors and artwork. Plus, they can be worn for much longer than a sticker because they wrap around the wrist like a bracelet for motivation all day long!

Arm Charms come in packs of 72 bracelets so you will have plenty to keep the motivation going in your classroom. The adhesive seal gives a secure fit to the Arm Charm so you can be sure that it will make it home so parents can be proud of their students hard work too!

Get Students Interested in Learning

Use games in order to make learning more fun. You can either make up your own games or you can buy them. Just be sure they are a lot of fun and pertinent to what you are trying to teach in your classroom. Kids enjoy playing all types of games so you can be sure to keep their interest in the classroom if you play a learning game each day. Try not to make it a game where there are any winners and losers though, make it something where everyone wins so that no one will feel left out if they still just can't seem to get the material. Of course, there are some occasions when all of the educational learning tools in the world can't help a student catch on to a lesson. We have all been there, where we just don't understand something. If this is the case for you with a student, then be sure not to call attention to the fact that they are struggling. Simply talk to them to see if there is anything you can do to help them understand the material better. All it takes is to ask and then it will be clear how to help.