Home-School Projects: More Ideas

I bet you want to know what type of projects I do with kids?  I like to write grants with my kids.  I ask them this question: If money were no object, what project would you like to accomplish?  Then I cover the board with their ideas.  I explain to the kids that there's a lot of grant funding for environmental projects and I'm passionate about getting funding for their projects.  Kids tend to want to make improvements to their school setting, such as the church property, or do outreach programs.  A Headstart class meets right on our church campus.  I'm betting the kids will want to work up lessons for the pre-schoolers.  The kids can decide the theme, pick the activities, select books to read, schedule the event, and conduct it.

Here's the plan to take on 100 kindergarteners in one morning.  With large groups, it pays to plan.  Once I have a date and have all of the materials on hand, I go over directions for each of 12-14 activities.  We practice.  We collect plastic grocery bags and old t-shirts to cover the children's clothes.  Then, we pack all of the materials and supplies to deliver the evening before the actual event.  We set up 12-14 stations in a large multi-purpose room.  This gives me a chance to double check for materials at each station, locate tons of garbage bags, and a hose. During the event, the children are distributed among the stations.  As they finish each station, they look for another which is open and continue in this fashion until they've hit all of the stations.  Clean-up takes an hour.

Here are 12-14 favorites: UV Beads (threaded on to pipe cleaners) and color changing fingernail polish, a coloring station, Cartesian Divers (Save bottles.), tornado tubes (Use one-liter bottles.), Magic Sand (Set up bowls with spoons and water.), Instant Snow (Stock this station with paper towel, paper cups, and water.), Grow beads (this requires cups, spoons, and water, too.), Optical Illusions (including Flipsticks the kids can make, Hello, Red Fox, and an optical illusion bank--a show stopper!), Oobleck, Slime (Stock loads of paper towels!), Colorful Lather Prints ( this requires paper plates, toothpicks, and shaving cream.). Glo Germs (Germs Make Me
Sick is optional.), Super Bubbles (outside), Sidewalk Chalk, and Volcanos.  We use tempera paint for pigments.  The big kids love watching the little ones do all of these cool experiments!