The Whiteboard Witch: April 2012

Glycerin Melt and Pour...Soap Making in the Classroom...

Creating groovy soap designs, with glycerin melt and pour soap base, is such a fun thing to do in the classroom. Children will love the hands-on experience and the process.

Often I give the children a design brief to work towards. If you're new to making soap with a class it's a good idea to limit the range of smells/essential oils children can use when they make their soap. When I first made soap with children they had a choice of these essences: lemongrass, lavender, raspberry, vanilla and strawberry.

Use the web to find photos of hand-made glycerin soaps and show these to the children for inspiration. I've also used YouTube to show children episodes from Soap Queen TV. Some of these episodes are very informative and really good to watch if you're a beginner.

Glycerin melt and pour soap base can be purchased as clear or as a white base. Silicon baking moulds are just the best thing for making this type of soap. It's a good idea to purchase a medium sized microwave glass jug for melting the soap base. Remember once your silicon moulds have been used for soap making they can no longer be used for baking.

Soap making can be weaved into so many areas of the curriculum. Below are some of the tasks children could complete as part of a unit on soap making.

To see more soap making in the classroom click here.

To watch a movie on soap making click here.

Technology/The Arts:

View different types of soap packaging
Create their own soap packaging, for the soap they've made.
Explore what colours could be used for their packaging and logo design.
Make promotional, advertising posters to promote the selling of their soap.
Create a new smelling soap.

Literacy:

View adverts for beauty products and explore the descriptive language used.
Write an advert for the soap they've created.
Develop catchy names for their soap.
Create a soap advert.

Maths/Statistics:

Carry out their own market research.
Children could do some sampling to find out what essential oils other children/family members like the most.
Children can compare this data as a class and decide what range of essential oils they can use in their soap making.
Work out the cost to make their soap and how much each bar of soap needs to be sold for to make a profit.

Social Sciences:

The impact of deforestation in Sumatra, for the planting of Palm oil plantations.
What other beauty products use palm oil.

This is a snapshot of a template you could use to get children started.

Soap packaging exploration.

Another template for soap exploration.

How to make Glycerine Melt and Pour Soap...

Our Glycerin Soap Designs...

Lemongrass with chunks of white lemongrass as drop-ins.

Lemongrass scented soap with circles.

Raspberry and Vanilla stars and hearts.

Raspberry presents.

Earthquake inspired soap...Liquarumble

Raspberry and vanilla...

Organic glycerin melt and pour soap base with a loofah.

Maths App for Primary Classroom: Rocket Math

If you want to hook children into practicing their maths skills then Rocket Math is the way to go! If you're a teacher wanting to use this app in the classroom you're best to purchase the full version. Rocket Math works on both the iPad and iPod.

This app allows players to save their game history and rocket/s. You can save up to five players per iPod/iPad. From experience children can get quite protective over the rockets they've modified and custom built. If you have access to a number of iPods/iPads then you may want to set up some rules and expectations, like no deleting other classmates rockets or playing their game.

Players can be edited and deleted by pressing the blue 'i' icon at the bottom right of the screen, this gets you into the settings for this app (a good thing to do once the year is over).

At the setup stage of Rocket Math children get to choose an avatar and start with $100 to build a basic rocket. They're then ready to start missions or jazz up their rocket by earning money. To do this they can complete a variety of equations for money: addition, subtraction, division or multiplication. Under each of these categories children can select easy, medium and hard. The equations are displayed horizontally.

Rocket Math is not just about building rockets...the variety is simply brilliant, children can select from the following missions: Numbers, Counting, Time, US Money, Shapes/Patterns, Add/Subtract, Multiply/Divide and Challenge.

Lets take one of these mission headings 'Counting.' If you click on 'Counting,' you can select from options like, counting forwards/back by one, counting forwards/back from 5's, count back from 10's starting at 300. I tried the latter one...I launched my rocket, gee I had to be quick to touch the correct number counting back from 300!

A screenshot of counting forwards in 1's to 30.

This game is so appealing, as children love being rewarded with medals or money to vamp up their rocket/s. This app would cater for a variety of maths levels, makes maths fun and is definitely value for money. My class love it!

Multiplication.com - Maths Web 2.0 Tools in the classroom!

This is one of the best websites for a variety of multiplication games. This site has had a revamp since 2011 and definitely for the better. They now offer resources for teachers and some of their worksheets can be download for free. This website has a clear layout and is easy to navigate for both teachers, parents and students.

A snapshot of the multiplication game 'Cone Crazy.'

My class really enjoy learning their multiplication facts in a fun and colourful way. There are many games that children can play with catchy titles, like Crazy Cone to Grany Prix. For most of the games children get to select the correct answer and can chose the level they start on. I really like how children can practise their multiplication facts in different contexts...from in the jungle....to a pet shop.

Click here to visit Multiplication.com!

If you have iPods/iPads in your classroom then why not try some of the apps created by Multiplication.com.

Snowglobe Fun Multiplication

Snowglobe Fun Division

Snowglobe Fun Addition

Snowglobe Fun Subtraction

You could put all your Snowglobe Apps together in a folder. If you're not sure how to do this then read my earlier post, iPods in the Classroom. These Apps have a very similar interface, again children pick their answer and starting level. I think it would be great if Multiplication.com could create future apps like the ones they have on their website.

Koru Stained Glass Windows...

I really enjoy using the koru pattern to create a variety of artworks. If you have limited wall space in your classroom and plenty of window space then this could be one of the ways to jazz up your learning space.

I came up with this idea and this is how we went about creating our stained glass koru windows.

If you want some more ideas click here, this will take you to the unit written by the Correspondence School in New Zealand.

We started by exploring koru patterns and kowhaiwhai patterns. I have many of these different patterns laminated for the children to use. I also used the koru pattern in maths to teach rotation, reflection and tessellations.

Exploring different colours and tones they could use in their design.

Starting on the large panels, A1 heavy duty cartridge paper sliced down the middle.

When the large pastel designs are finished they're reading for oiling. The children used large brushes to paint oil on the front and back of their artworks. Tip: brush gently because some pastels can smudge. If this happens you can wait for the oil to dry and touch up the colour with pastels. Hang up artworks to dry.