Making a small parachute from a coffee filter and a used paper/ plastic cup, is the first step in teaching young minds about wind power. I was inspired by this activity at the children’s museum and I plan to use it in my classroom. (I have pictures to add, taken from my iPhone, but I am trying to figure out how to do so with my wordpress app). After giving my children some “think time” in the car ride home from the museum, they decided that we could build our own wind tunnel at home with either glass (yikes) or poster board. So, after payday, we plan to build a wind tunnel from poster board the has been rolled and taped into a tall cylinder. Then, our plan is to place a fan (whichever we can find) under the tunnel and drop our special made coffee filter parachutes into it. It should also be fun to experiment with fan speeds, location and parachute design to evaluate the power of the “wind.” I am getting excited as I write this! Is this something your children at home or school would enjoy? Please share!
Author: Andrea Darcy
Welcome to my brand new blog and thanks for coming!
I have created this blog to communicate more effectively with fellow teachers from around the globe, parents and my students. In our world today, so many of use use facebook, twitter, teacher websites and blogs as way to communicate with one another. E-mail and texting is now a substitute for phone calls (for me anyway)! This blog will be a way for me to tell everyone our most up to date happenings in our classroom. Blogs are simply a more effective way to share ideas because websites take a little more time to share postings.
So, why is this blog so important to me? I am a recent Master’s degree graduate of Walden University and our motto is to become a “scholar of change.” As I reflect upon my classroom last year, I realize that I have the power to bring positive social change to my classroom and home by using technology more and incorporating many more practices of conserving and re-using classroom things.
I would love for you to join me on this adventure as we commit to incorporating at least one “green” idea into our classroom and home this year. So, what will you do? I am excited to hear and I will be posting pictures soon!
Ways not to be “green”…that I am guilty of, and what I can do differently.
1. Throw away trash from cutting in a trash can, instead of a recycle bin.
2. Not re-using containers, such as plastic soda bottles and milk boxes, but instead, throwing them away.
3. Not always turning out the lights of my classroom when we leave the room.
4. Using paper more than the interactive white board, dry-erase board, or mini-chalkboard.
5. Throwing away newspapers and advertisements from the mail, instead of re-using them int a learning station.
Now that I have identified ways that I am not “being green” in the classroom, I have ideas of ways I can be green.
1. Compost paper trash and make new paper with it..
2. Use cans, soda bottles, juice boxes, and milk containers as crayon and pencil holders and craft items.
3. Have a student be in charge of turning off the lights each time we leave the classroom.
4. Have mini-dry erase boards, mini-chalkboards or laminated white poster-board pieces (cheaper than mini-white boards) for students writing response. I could even have them turn in thier writing/drawing and grade it. Not everything graded has to be sent home, right?
5. Lastly, for now, I will use newspapers with the die-cut machine, as book covers, and for finding sight words with highlighters.
I think I can commit to these simple, yet dramatic choices, which will benefit our world one classroom at a time. My goal is to have students master our Texas Kindergarten standards of practicing ways to be a conservationalist. I also want my students to teach and encourage their families to conserve, re-use and recycle at home too!
green bean kindergarten 