Making a Weather Vane for Grade 1 Science

Jellybean had such a blast making a weather vane for her Grade 1 Science. We are busy learning about weather and one of her projects this week was a weather vane. To make your own you will need:

• Some self-drying clay
  
• Thick cardboard
  
• Dowel stick
• Spool
• Button
• Tape

Use a large piece or square cardboard (I used an old tupperware). Mark the four corners with N S E and W to represent the directions. Place a ball of the clay in the centre and push the dowel stick into it. Leave to dry. Make sure the stick is pointing up straight. 

Stick your button (or a round piece of cardboard) to the top of the spool to close one end off. Allow the glue to dry to ensure that the button is secure. 

Cut an arrow from stiff cardboard. You can paint the arrow just to add some more fun to the project. Once the paint has dried on the arrow, stick the spool to the back of the arrow and place the spool on top of the dowel stick. 

Take your weather vane outside in the morning and make sure that the E is pointing toward the east (remember the sun rises in the east so it shouldn't be too difficult to find). You can now track and record the wind direction throughout the day.

Kids love nothing more than a super cool science experiment. This experiment was no exception.  Lava Lamps! Here are instructions on how to make your own lava lamps.

Even though we have not officially started our home schooling adventure as yet, we have already started discovering how much fun learning can be. Today we decided to cover Marie biscuits with different coloured icing.  But the trick was that for the girls to get the colours they wanted, they had to guess which colours you had to mix to make right colour.  They then got to mix them up into small containers so got to see exactly how the colours mixed together to make the colour they needed. All the colours you see were made up with exception of the yellow.  

They also spent time having to separate colours with the Smarties and Astros and had to count along with each Smartie/Astro they placed on their Marie biscuit. The kids had so much fun baking that they never even realised that it was actually a learning experience and already can remember all the colours that need to be mixed together to come out at orange, light blue, pink, purple and green.