DIY Indoor Ice Luge
- Patria Lincoln Posted On Feb 18, 2018 | STEM
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Full of bright colors and loud noises, the Chinese New Year begins on February 1 this year (the date of the celebration changes year to year because Chinese New Year starts on the second new moon after the winter solstice). In ancient times the festival was an effort by villagers to scare away a mythical wild beast named Nien with bright lights and big noises. Nowadays, Chinese New Year is celebrated worldwide with family dinners, thorough house cleaning, fireworks, and parades. Your family can enjoy the festivities with three cool crafts perfect for ringing in the Chinese New Year!
Materials
1. Paint your paper plate red.
2. While drying, draw a dragon head on one index card and a tail on another. You can find many templates and inspiration online if you’re not a master artist. Color your dragon with vibrant-colored markers or crayons.
3. Cut the head and tail out and glue or tape each to the top of a craft stick. Packing tape works well.
4. Cut a piece of yellow construction paper, roughly 1” x 4”, accordion and fold it—tape one end to your dragon’s head and the other to its tail.
5. Use a knife to carefully slice the bottom of the center of the plate and insert your craft sticks into the opening.
Materials
1. Fold your sheet of construction paper in half, longways, pressing to make a heavy crease at the fold.
2. Cut through the folded edge of the paper, stopping about a ½” from the other side. Continue cutting until you read the other side.
3. Unfold the paper and tape or staple the two edges together to form a tube.
4. Add a handle made of a strip of construction paper and embellish your lantern with fringe, ribbon, and stickers. Tape or staple a tube of paper in another color to the inside of your lantern to create a “hurricane” style, or add a bit of fringed paper to the bottom edge.
Full of bright colors and loud noises, the Chinese New Year begins on February 1 this year (the date of the celebration changes year to year because Chinese New Year starts on the second new moon after the winter solstice). In ancient times the festival was an effort by villagers to scare away a mythical wild beast named Nien with bright lights and big noises. Nowadays, Chinese New Year is celebrated worldwide with family dinners, thorough house cleaning, fireworks, and parades. Your family can enjoy the festivities with three cool crafts perfect for ringing in the Chinese New Year!
Materials
1. Paint your paper plate red.
2. While drying, draw a dragon head on one index card and a tail on another. You can find many templates and inspiration online if you’re not a master artist. Color your dragon with vibrant-colored markers or crayons.
3. Cut the head and tail out and glue or tape each to the top of a craft stick. Packing tape works well.
4. Cut a piece of yellow construction paper, roughly 1” x 4”, accordion and fold it—tape one end to your dragon’s head and the other to its tail.
5. Use a knife to carefully slice the bottom of the center of the plate and insert your craft sticks into the opening.
Materials
1. Fold your sheet of construction paper in half, longways, pressing to make a heavy crease at the fold.
2. Cut through the folded edge of the paper, stopping about a ½” from the other side. Continue cutting until you read the other side.
3. Unfold the paper and tape or staple the two edges together to form a tube.
4. Add a handle made of a strip of construction paper and embellish your lantern with fringe, ribbon, and stickers. Tape or staple a tube of paper in another color to the inside of your lantern to create a “hurricane” style, or add a bit of fringed paper to the bottom edge.
Learning about the solar system can feel disconnected from everyday life and very far away. This solar system matching activity uses a learning tree to bring lessons from outer space a little closer to home.
Getting Started
We began by putting the planets in order by their distance from the sun. This first step is physical, visual and practical, and helps kids see and understand the solar system.
Play A Solar System Matching Game
First, I wrote the names of the planets on index cards then attached paper clips and a loop of wire to each. This made it easier to hang each tag on a tree branch. Christmas decoration hooks or twist ties can also work. We simply used what we had on hand.
Index cards labelled with each planet's name
Add a loop of wire or an ornament hook for easy hanging
Then, we hung the sun from the ceiling of the living room. Because the inflatable sun is so large, it made sense to hang it up above the tree to provide more space for the planets.
Next, we hung the index cards around the tree. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, sat at the very top and was only a few inches away from the inflatable sun hanging from the ceiling. We circled the rest of the index cards around the tree in the same order of the planets in the solar system.
Mercury at the top of the tree followed by Venus, then Earth.
The index cards circled the tree matching the order of the planets from the sun.
Each inflatable planet (and the sun) has convenient loops on the plug that make it easy to hang up.
Then, my four-year old daughter got to work. First, she identified Mercury in the row of planets we’d set out earlier and then looked for the matching index card.At four, she is pre-reading, so I asked her to find the index card that started with “M” near the top of the tree. She found the match and hung the planet up.
Then we moved on to Venus, Earth, the moon and the other planets. One by one, she matched each planet to its tag on the tree.With a larger tree, most of the planets will fit. With a smaller tree like ours, Uranus and Pluto sat on the floor.By the end of the activity, we had a Christmas tree loaded with planets, my daughter had a new visual understanding of the solar system and she recognized and matched the planets with their name tags.
How will you use the Giant Inflatable Solar System in learning with your kids?
Learning about the solar system can feel disconnected from everyday life and very far away. This solar system matching activity uses a learning tree to bring lessons from outer space a little closer to home.
Getting Started
We began by putting the planets in order by their distance from the sun. This first step is physical, visual and practical, and helps kids see and understand the solar system.
Play A Solar System Matching Game
First, I wrote the names of the planets on index cards then attached paper clips and a loop of wire to each. This made it easier to hang each tag on a tree branch. Christmas decoration hooks or twist ties can also work. We simply used what we had on hand.
Index cards labelled with each planet's name
Add a loop of wire or an ornament hook for easy hanging
Then, we hung the sun from the ceiling of the living room. Because the inflatable sun is so large, it made sense to hang it up above the tree to provide more space for the planets.
Next, we hung the index cards around the tree. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, sat at the very top and was only a few inches away from the inflatable sun hanging from the ceiling. We circled the rest of the index cards around the tree in the same order of the planets in the solar system.
Mercury at the top of the tree followed by Venus, then Earth.
The index cards circled the tree matching the order of the planets from the sun.
Each inflatable planet (and the sun) has convenient loops on the plug that make it easy to hang up.
Then, my four-year old daughter got to work. First, she identified Mercury in the row of planets we’d set out earlier and then looked for the matching index card.At four, she is pre-reading, so I asked her to find the index card that started with “M” near the top of the tree. She found the match and hung the planet up.
Then we moved on to Venus, Earth, the moon and the other planets. One by one, she matched each planet to its tag on the tree.With a larger tree, most of the planets will fit. With a smaller tree like ours, Uranus and Pluto sat on the floor.By the end of the activity, we had a Christmas tree loaded with planets, my daughter had a new visual understanding of the solar system and she recognized and matched the planets with their name tags.
How will you use the Giant Inflatable Solar System in learning with your kids?
It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!
With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!
Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!
Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.
Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!
Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!
Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!
Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!
It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!
With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!
Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!
Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.
Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!
Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!
Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!
Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!