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Oh Snap! We Made A Birdhouse!
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On Jun 2, 2017 | Math
Snap Cubes offer endless hours of creative play. The building, taking apart, and building again is the best part. But for the summer months, why not make something that lasts all season? Spill out a pack of the colorful cubes on the picnic table this season to make a fun and functional birdhouse!
First, create a base for your avian abode. In this case, green cubes were snapped together to make “grass”. Be certain to interlock the protruding side of the cube at different touch points up and down your square to ensure a strong fit. Also, select an odd number of cubes, so your entryway and perch will be centered.
Make an entryway for your birdhouse. Depending on who you see pecking around your yard, make sure you opening is tall enough. Here, the opening is four cubes high, in the hopes that some sparrows might want to call it home.
Begin building your house around the entryway. Construct your walls, making sure that they interlock, by once again alternating your protruding Snap Cube sides with one another.
Continue building your walls so you get a hole in the center where your roof will be constructed. Here, white “trim” defined where the roof and sides meet.
When creating the interior roof structure, make your pieces three cubes long. Again, make sure to snap the protruding side at different points within the roof infrastructure. Hold your sidewalls as you slide the three-stacked cubes inside.
Start your peaked roof in the middle with Snap Cubes stacked three high, running the length of your roof. To the left and right of the three-stack, cascade the roof to two-stacks, then one, creating your “peak”.
Keep your flat roof supported as you create your pitch with support from your hand.
Add fun details like a chimney or bushes with “flowers” to customize your birdhouse. And don’t forget the perch!
Place your birdhouse outside on a table, ledge, or safely nestled in a large bush or small tree. Welcome home, little birds!
Learning is Where We Play:
DIY Craft Dough Penguins!
Keep kids entertained this winter with these adorable penguin friends. From their waddle to their formal attire, they are undoubtedly entertaining to observe and explore. Create your own little penguins with this simple, non-toxic dough. Add Learning Resources’ Penguins on Ice to the mix for added activities and learning fun!
For this cute penguin craft, you will need:
- Room temperature butter
- Light corn syrup
- Powdered sugar
- Salt
- Food coloring of your choice
- Feel free to add sprinkles for the eyes or their cold-weather accessories
- Roll out some wax paper on a flat surface to make the dough.
- Add one teaspoon of butter to a bowl. This is no time to substitute – you will need the fat from the butter to make the dough come together. Margarine will not work.
- Add one tablespoon of light corn syrup. Not only will the corn syrup provide moisture, but it will also prevent the crystallization of the powdered sugar you will add in a few steps.
- Add 1/8 teaspoon of salt.
- Using a fork, mash the salt, corn syrup, and butter together.
- Next, measure out a cup of powdered sugar. Carefully add the sugar to the mixture, spoonful by spoonful, mixing it the entire time you go.
- Grab the dough out of the bowl and begin to knead it with your hands. Form it into a ball.
- Separate the dough into two parts. One part will remain white, while the other will get the food coloring treatment.
- Separate one of the halves again. You can use any food coloring you like for the flippers and head. Black or blue works perfectly. Then choose any color for the penguins’ accessories. Red was used here
- A drop of food coloring will go a long way with this dough. Work it through. Once you’ve completed one color, make sure you wash your hands for the next color!
- Then, squeeze a little dough off to make a beak with some orange food coloring. No orange? What two colors should you combine to make the shade?
- Roll the white dough into a ball for the penguin’s body. Then roll the black or blue dough into a smaller shape for its head.
- Fashion some flippers and a beak, and perhaps use sprinkles for the penguin’s eyes.
- This dough can get soft fast, so after we created our little black-and-white friends, we stuck them in the refrigerator. The kids figured the penguins felt pretty at home in the cold!
- All this penguin talk made them want to break out Penguins on Ice, one of their favorite math games from Learning Resources.
- This cool game helps the kids understand math patterns and sorting. There are little icebergs that the penguins stand on, which can form grids in groups of ten.
- The kids challenge each other by lining up the penguins in order. Taking away penguins or adding them reinforces basic math skills. Hours of fun!
Happy winter! Stay warm!
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Math Games That Register!
Sort It Out
This one’s for the littlest learners! Jumble up the coins and bills from the Cash Register and challenge your little ones to sort them out into the divided compartments in the Register. Point out that the different types of coins are different shapes and colors and that the bills have different numbers on them. Tell your child the value and name of each coin and bill as they put them away.
Penny Pitch
This fast-action learning game combines physical and mental fun! Give each child a handful of random play coins and a large plastic bowl. Place the bowls on the ground with the kids standing behind them and have each child take 5 big steps backward. Then ready, set, toss! Tossing one coin at a time, see how many each child can get into their bowl. Then challenge them to count the value of the coins inside.
Find It Fun
Hide your play coins and bills around the house (remember to track how many you’ve hidden!), then let your little ones loose. When you think all the coins have been found, have each child count the value of their stash. The seeker who found the most money wins!
Buy It Back
Using printer labels or tie-on tags, gather a few of your child’s toys, and put a price on them (round numbers are easier for little kids, dollars and cents work well for older kids). Give each child a bank of dollars and coins and have them “pay” you for the toys they want. Older elementary-school-aged kids can play cashier while YOU buy with bills, making your change from the register.
Slime Time
Turn money math into a sensory experience by placing your play coins in a batch of slime or a bin of Playfoam Pluffle™. Sneak in some fine motor skill practice by having your kids extract the coins using play tweezers – and total them up.
Money Match
Turning a sheet of printer paper sideways, draw a bunch of balloons tied with a string and let your little ones color them in. Then use a marker to write a random amount of dollars and cents on each balloon. Open your register and see if your child can remove the correct amount and place it on the matching balloon. Hint – keep your totals low so your kids can complete all the balloons without having to restock the register.
Money Bunny
Put those empty plastic Easter eggs to use! Fill each egg with a tiny surprise – a bit of chocolate, piece of chewing gum, etc. – then use a Sharpie to write a price on the outside of the egg. If your child can give you the correct amount of money, they win the prize inside!
Bingo Bucks
Practice matching and coin value by creating your own Bingo cards! Start by dividing a sheet of paper (card stock works well) into nine boxes. Write a coin value (1, 5, 10, or 25) in each, then give each child a handful of play coins. Reaching into your own pile, pull out a coin and call out its value. If the player has a matching coin and an open space with that value on their card, they place it there. The first player to complete a row, column, or diagonal wins the game!
Coin-a-Pillars
Turning a sheet of printer paper sideways, have your kids draw a caterpillar head (don’t forget the antennae) at one end, five or six empty circles with lines beneath each, a few fuzzy feet, and a line at the end. Color them in if you like. Then, with their eyes closed, have them pick five or six play coins out of a bowl and place them in their caterpillar’s circles. Using a pencil, have them write the value of each coin beneath it and total up the value on the line at the end. Remove the coins, erase the numbers, and begin again!
Slap Stack
Give each child a stack of random play bills and call out a number. The first player to find the bills that add up to that number and slap them down on the table wins the round. The first player to win five rounds wins the game! Start with simple numbers like $1 or $6 and work your way up to tougher addition, like $9 or $14. Older kids can add coins to their stash and learn to build a dollar out of dimes and quarters.
Save it for later!
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