Our Winter Wall

Our "fall wall" (Instagram) was a hit in our house this year, so on the first day of winter, December 21, I started decorating for our "winter wall." I'm hoping to make it a seasonal tradition as it is a nice focal point in the house, a place to display seasonal artwork and it provides us with learning opportunities.
Here is what we currently have on our wall:

Winter Banner
I loved the fall banner that I found online but finding a similar winter one was a bit tricky. There were many holiday ones and "let it snow" ones (we barely get snow in our parts so that one wasn't really appealing). So, with my limited design skills I made my own banner which came out better than I had expected. I was going to run some yarn across it so that it actually looked like a hanging banner, but, well, we'll see lol. Sometimes it's a major accomplishment just to get something up.

You can download  the Winter Banner here




Winter Words
Just like for our fall wall, I found a freebie winter wall words printable (from the same person) at Teachers Pay Teachers.


These are just a few of the words we have displayed.  There are 40 winter words in this resources. I loved the winter clothes words and she does have some holiday words as well, which obviously we omitted for our use.

Winter Crafts
So we've started a few simple winter crafts. There's our hot cocoa Popsicle stick craft:

Popsicle sticks are my number one go to for crafts this year as I got a box of 1000 of them last year and umm, you can see how much we still have.


(I had gotten a box of jumbo ones as well and we went through that one really quick but I guess I had these out of sight otherwise I'm sure these would be gone too).

The inspiration for this hot cocoa mug craft came from the Glued to My Crafts blog where you can find instructions but it's pretty explanatory looking at the picture I think.

Then there's our Popsicle stick snowflake:


This was another easy one. We painted the sticks and then glued them together and added glitter.

So, those are our winter crafts so far. I've collected some more winter craft ideas on my Winter Craft Pinterest board:

Happy Winter!

Math - Money Learning Resources

Reference

US Coins Reference Chart - I made this up recently for my daughter's "math office" reference board.

Manipulatives

Play Money - I made this printable up when we lived overseas and I couldn't find US money coins and dollars very readily. Has $1, $5, $10 $20, $50 and $100 bills and pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.


Lessons

Pennies, Dimes, and Dollars Lesson - this is a lesson I made up for one of my older kids when they were in the 3rd grade. It has activities, a few worksheets and handwriting practice for writing coin names and amounts.

Games/Online Practice


Compounds



  • A compound is formed when atoms of two or more elements are combined. 
  • Separating a compound requires a chemical reaction. 
  • The properties of a compound are usually different than the properties of the elements it contains.

We recently studied compounds and I thought I'd share the resources we found/used at the upper elementary level (5th/6th grade) (presented in a lesson plan format)


Other Resources:

Mixtures, Suspensions, and Solutions


If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Mixture:
A mixture  is a combination of two or more things that keep their own properties.


Solution:
A solution is a mixture that stays mixed because its particles are as small as atoms or molecules, such as sugar and water


Suspension:
A suspension is a mixture in which the particles settle and separate into layers over time, such as oil and vinegar.


We're wrapping up our studies of mixtures at the upper elementary level. Here was our 5th grade lesson plan. There are links to experiments and other resources.

5th Grade Lesson Plan

1. Read Lesson 4 Mixtures (California Science Text from MHSchool) - record/define vocabulary words as you/we read

2. Activity: After reading "To Settle or Not to Settle" make a solution and a suspension (We did this as a spur of the moment activity.)

Materials: Glass or plastic jars/containers.

Make a solution (mix a tablespoon of  sugar and a glass of water, or use salt and water).  Keep this for later in the lesson.

Make a suspension (with oil and vinegar). Draw a picture of the result. Why does the vinegar separate to the bottom? Keep this for later in the lesson. (you might want to add food coloring to the vinegar before you mix them so the contrast of layers shows up even more). Also, try mixing 3 or more liquids with different densities.


3. After reading "Reaching a Limit," add more sugar (or salt) to your solution past the point of solubility (so that sugar no longer dissolves.) Draw a picture of the results. Label the solvent and the solute in your picture. Then, heat up the solution and record/draw the results.  You might also cool the solution down again and see what the results are.

4. We also did another activity with oil and vinegar: Lava Lamp with Baking Soda

 
(Science water???) lol

Now, that's all we had time for today (well, we also our "Kids First Chemistry Set" to try to make salt crystals, so we didn't get to separating mixtures on the first day.

5. Read "Separating Mixtures, " record vocabulary
6. Watch "Separating Mixtures" presentation
7. Do "Separating Mixtures" virtual lab; McGraw Hill Separating Mixtures Virtual LabElements, Compounds, Mixtures Virtual Lab (My son LOVED the separating mixtures labs...I couldn't find enough for him)
8. Do a real life "Separating Mixtures" lab  (another one: How to Separate Mixtures)
8. Do some separating mixtures worksheets: (use google to search)