STEM

How To Make A Tornado In A Bottle

As part of our preschool W is for Weather lesson, we made a tornado in a bottle. Tornadoes are fascinating storms, aren’t they! Simply put, for our little students sake, they are very strong, rotating winds that form a funnel cloud. They happen when there are thunderstorms but not all thunderstorms produce tornadoes.

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There is more than one way to reproduce the funnel action of a tornado for your kiddos to see. We used the “soda bottle method.”

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How to Make A Tornado In A Bottle

Supplies

Empty, clear 2-litre soda bottle*

Water

Dishwashing liquid

Glitter

*A glass jar with straight sides works really well, too. In fact, now that I tried it that is my preferred container.

Directions

Remove the label from the bottle and rinse it out.

Fill it 3/4 full of water.

Add several drops dishwashing liquid.

Add glitter.

Put the cap securely on the bottle and invert.

Holding the bottle neck, swish it around several times in a circular motion.

Stop and watch it whirl!

Make a tornado in a bottle to teach your #kids about the weather! #STEM #ece #preschool Share on X

A second way to demonstrate the funnel cloud of a tornado is to use a tornado tube connector to connect 2 bottles. The funnel it makes will be very vivid!

kids activities, preschool, kindergarten

W is for Weather Lesson: includes W is for Weather lesson plan with a “cloud and rain” experiment and weather craft with 3-D marshmallow clouds for kindergarten and preschool.

Enjoy!

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Best Gift For An Artistic Creative Child

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What do you do when it comes to buying gifts for creative kids? These children thrive using their imaginations. Anything else bores them.

Find the best gift for little Mr. Artistic or Miss Creativity. Here three fabulous ideas:

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1. Mini-Camera Set: let your child express himself through photography! This Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 Instant camera set for kids comes with lots of extras* and is so easy to use. It gives your kids the pleasure of displaying their work in frames (included) within seconds. That is what the world of “instant” is all about, right?

Check out the whole package:
☑️ Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 Instant Camera Package for Kids It includes colorful frames, photo album, stickers and its own matching carrying case. The camera comes in several colors including flamingo pink, cobalt blue, ice blue, lime green and smokey white.

2. 3-D Drawing Pens for Kids and Adults – kids can make their designs “come to life” from page through a pen! They will have lots of fun and you will be amazed at what they come up with.

3-D pen that your creative kids will LOVE #ad

3. LEGO Boost Creative Toolbox Robot Building Kit — this 🌟 award-winning robotic toy kit is lots of fun to build but, get this, it also WORKS! Top recommendation indicates it is best for kids ages 7-12. Great introduction to programming and robotics.

The BEST gifts for those artistic creative kids of yours! #kids #gifts Share on X

The great gift ideas for artistic, creative kids don’t end there! Look at the painting sets for your budding young artists, musical instruments for the musically inclined, video cameras for making their claim to fame and more:

Enjoy!

Fun Things To Teach Preschoolers About Frogs

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Frogs are fascinating! Their big bulgy eyes, strong hopping legs and super strong swimming power are more than enough to keep a child’s interest. Add watching one EAT A BUG and the day is complete! We just studied the Letter F is for Frog in my preschool class. Let me tell you what we did.

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One fascinating thing about frogs is their life cycle. We learned it in a few ways. I showed the children a diagram of the life cycle and pointed out that, after they hatch from eggs, they begin looking like little fish. They agreed that tadpoles look just like fish! I sent them home with a picture of the life cycle of a frog that they could share with their families.

Next, we saw a brief You Tube video that taught about amphibians but it concentrated primarily on frogs. (see it below)

For our daily lesson, I read “Frogs” by National Geographic Kids to our class. It is full of beautiful pictures. This book is perfect for teaching a lesson about frogs for students in preschool, kindergarten and the younger primary grades.

Now this was special>> one of our students caught a frog in her yard and she brought it to school, so we had a real live frog for everyone in our class to see. And my students got to see how to capture a frog, too. LOL Yes, I opened the container for the children to get a better look at the little guy and he hopped out. Gee whiz, frogs can MOVE FAST! Thankfully, I got him safely back into his container. Disaster overted!

Getting movement into our day: we hopped like a frog as we walked down the hallway at school all day long!

5 Fun Facts About Frogs

Frogs are amphibians

Frogs hatch out of eggs.

Frogs breathe through their skin.

A group of frogs is called an “army.”

Baby frogs, called “tadpoles”, look like little fish.

*More fun facts about FROGS here.

If you live near a creek or a pond, take your kids frog-hunting. Put together a little critter habitat for your frog to live in at home for a while before you release him back in the wild. If you do not have easy access to frogs, you can buy a kit and watch it grow!

Give your preschoolers a day of fun learning all about FROGS! #STEM #preschool #kindergarten Share on X

Want a really fun frog craft to do with your kids? This F is for Frog Preschool Craft is very special. The frog “hops” on its lily pad!

Enjoy!

Math Fun For Your Kids Online – FREE Interactve Math Games

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Education.com has come up with some fun interactive games for your kids to hone their math skills this summer. They have a nice collection of FREE math games for children ages Preschool through Middle School.

Here is one of the games for you to try out! Kids build three-digit numbers using playing cards in this number sense game. Check out more of Education.com’s math games for practice with essential math skills.

Enjoy!

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Letter R is for Rainbow Preschool Craft Fun

Letter I is for Insect Preschool Science Lesson and Fun Bottle Cap Craft

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Some letters of the alphabet lend themselves to an assortment of great preschool lessons – to me, I is not one of them. Sorry, dear letter I, but I was scraping for something to do.

I is for Ice was OK but as a stand-alone topic, it is short on attention grabbing activities for 3 and 4 year olds. Plus, ice was slated to be part of my W is for Weather theme later in the year. So, finally it came to me – we’d do I is for Insect. I was happy indeed!

preschool activities, kids activities, preschool crafts, kids crafts, bugs

The facts about insects that you will want to teach preschoolers involves how to recognize them – after all, not every creepy crawly is an insect. Some bugs, such as spiders, for instance, are eight-legged creatures called arachnids.

So, how do we recognize an insect? An insect has six legs, three body parts – head, thorax, abdomen – two antennae and most of them have wings.

Click here: Fun Insect Facts for Kids

I wanted my little kiddos to see an insect up-close and personal but it was December. No insects outside to capture this time of year. While cleaning my house, I discovered a couple of deceased stink bugs behind a chair. Yippee! That was my answer.

Note: got stink bugs? Here is a helpful advice from Tips Bulletin on how to get rid of them: How To Get Rid Of Stink Bugs – 8 Simple Home Remedies

I created this little sheet on the computer, printed it onto cardstock and glued the stink bugs on – one so the top side showed and the other exposing the underside. Using a magnfying glass, we played “detective” as we discovered the parts of the insect body on real insects!

preschool activities, kids science, insects, stink bugs, bugs

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In addition to learning about insects and seeing real ones under a magnifying glass, we read insect books and made an insect craft.

This craft is so easy and fun. Oh, I just have to share this. My students come up with the funniest things -they make me laugh. Take a look at the bottle cap insect I made in the craft below. They said exactly what I thought they would. They thought the black pipe cleaner antennae were eye brows or a mustache! LOL I was prepared for that and drew a smile on each one for them (picture below) Problem solved!

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I is for Insect Bottle Cap Preschool Craft

Supplies

White cardstock

Leaf coloring page

Crayons

Two colorful bottle caps

White school glue

Cotton swabs

Googly eyes

Black pipe cleaners cut in 1/2 – 1 inch pieces

Black marker

Glitter

Directions

Print a leaf coloring page* on white card-stock paper.

Color the coloring page with crayons.

Dip the open ends of the bottle caps in white school glue.

Stick them to the page where the “legs” are and allow to dry a few minutes so that it adheres.

Using cotton swabs dipped in white glue, stick 2 googly eyes plus 2 pipe cleaners onto one bottle cap for the face.

Draw a smile underneath the eyes….now you know he doesn’t have eyebrows or a mustache LOL!

Put dots on the other bottle cap and sprinkle with glitter for decoration, like a lady bug.

*Tip – I added legs and a title right onto my coloring page but you can just draw the legs on the page.

Letter I is for Insect #preschool science lesson and bottle cap #craft - so much fun! Share on X

The smile makes the difference!

Have you checked out our Directory of Preschool & Kindergarten Websites? It has links to 48+ excellent blogs and websites with tons of age-appropriate lessons and craft ideas for you.

More insect related lessons for preschoolers: A is for Ant – B is for Butterfly – C is for Caterpillar

Enjoy!