#1525. Paper Plate fun

Mathematics, level: Elementary
Posted Wed Jan 19 23:04:47 PST 2000 by Gracie Currie (briandlaur@home.com).
home schooler, Allen, Tx
Materials Required: red plastic paper plates, white paper plates, markers, sentence strips
Activity Time: 30 minutes, initially, then 15 minutes/day
Concepts Taught: telling time, making music, and having fun

During our "bug unit", we would use red plastic plates and make "ladybug" clocks with black spots next to the numbers. Cute as a bug idea!

We also used paper plates as watermelon maraccas during our watermelon jamborree at the end of the year. You fold a paper plate in half, color it green around the bumpy edges, and red with black seed on the smooth part. Next, fill it with dried watermelon seeds and tape it with clear packing tape shut. Fun

Another thing I used to teach teachers about was for St. Patricts Day. We would read Don Freeman's story "A Rainbow of My Own", and then make rainbow hats. We did this with a sentence strip, paper plate, and markers. The kids color the outer edge of a plate red, next orange, then yellow, green, blue, indigo (dark purple) then violet (light purple). Cut the plates in half to make 2 rainbows. Staple one to a sentence strip, and have the children draw a outdoor scene and their name on the strip, fit their heads, and staple the strip to make a circle for a rainbow hat! The other "rainbow" half may be used on a wall display above their creative writing stories about what is really at the end of a rainbow! By the way, I got these ideas from Lasting Lessons workshops. e'mail me if interested in going. I used to teach them!