Pump-kin. Spi-der. There are tons of easy Halloween words you can use to teach or practice syllables. Here’s a free printable Halloween worksheet for you all about syllables!
Download the full size printable: Halloween Syllables [PDF]
I’m pleased to announce the winners of my most recent giveaway for the hit science book, Candy Experiments 2! The winners are:
Trina F.
Lauralee W.
Angel F.
Check back later for another giveaway! Thanks again for supporting my blog!
**This giveaway has ended. Check back later for more giveaways!**
Happy Halloween! (It’s October now, so I can start thinking about Halloween, right?!) How about doing some science with all of that trick-or-treating candy?! Perfect timing for this fun science book giveaway!
Yup, I’ve scored 3 more copies of the hit science book, Candy Experiments 2, by Loralee Leavitt, and I’m giving them away to 3 lucky readers! If you haven’t checked it out, it’s a must! Click here to read my last post about doing one of the candy experiments! I also suggest asking your school librarian to purchase a copy for your school’s library collection.
The Prize: A copy of Candy Experiments 2 by Loralee Leavitt
Participating is simple! Tell me your favorite candy by leaving a comment below. (Scroll all the way down to the very bottom of this post to see the comments section. No sign in required to comment, but if you’re not a WordPress member, please leave your first name and a way to get a hold of you so I can contact you if you win!)
This giveaway ends at midnight (PST) on Thursday, October 8, 2015. Don’t wait! **This giveaway has ended. Check back later for more giveaways!**
The Fine Print: Participation is optional. Only one entry per person. No purchase is necessary to participate. Available to US participants only. There will be three winners. The winner will be randomly selected. I will email the winner between Friday, October 9 – Sunday, October 11, 2015. The winners will have 72 hours to respond and provide me with contact information so I can get their prize to them. If the winner does not respond within 72 hours, the winner forfeits the prize and another winner will randomly be selected (in which case the new winner will be notified and the same terms apply). The winners will be announced on this blog once eligibility has been confirmed. This giveaway is solely sponsored by Squarehead Teachers and Loralee Leavitt. It is not affiliated with WordPress or any other sponsor(s). Void where prohibited. If you have additional questions, please contact me!
**This giveaway has ended. Check back later for more giveaways!**
Another freebie for you over at We Are Teachers! This one’s all about figuring out how your students learn best. Click here to visit my post and download the page!
I recently came across a well written piece called “A Letter to My Children: What it Means to be a Teacher.” The author provides some insight to her own children about teaching. It’s definitely worth the read. Here are some of my favorite lines:
“Teachers don’t see their classrooms as places where you go to make rules and assign homework.”
“Teachers worry about their students the way I worry about you.”
“Teaching doesn’t open at 8:00 in the morning and close at 5:00 at night.”
“[Teaching] creates an eternal optimist of you. It reminds you that every life matters…”
“Teachers could have chosen any profession, but instead they chose to teach you.”
“Take the lessons of teachers with you: work to discover and be your best selves, see potential in others, extend kindness, and ask tough questions.”
“We spend one week each year remembering to appreciate teachers, but I want you to spend a lifetime teaching appreciation.”
**This giveaway has ended. Please check back again soon for more giveaways!**
If you loved the awesome post about experimenting with candy or the giveaway for the crazy fun kids book, Candy Experiments, by Loralee Leavitt, you’re in luck! She wrote a second book about candy science and Squarehead Teachers is giving away a brand new copy!!
I flipped through the book, trying to decide which experiment to try first. Tough decision! Should I try the Ghost Lollipop or the Easter Grass Spaghetti? Or maybe the Shattering Peeps experiment? Or the Marshmallow Bottle Launcher?
After promising myself we’d do them all eventually, I decided to try the Puffy Pop Rocks experiment first to see what would happen when you bake them.
As soon as I put them into the oven, I instantly heard popping sounds! Whaaat? They pop when you add heat? I thought it was something to do with contact to spit? Guess not! And then, when I pulled them out, they were smooth like pearls! Want to know why? You’ll have to read the book! 🙂
I’ll definitely have to pull this out again and try some more of them. That means I’ll finally have a legitimate excuse for buying classroom candy! Yesss!
So, now to the book giveaway…
The Prize: A copy of Candy Experiments 2 (which will definitely lead to hours of SWEET science!)
Participating is simple! All you have to do is answer the following question by leaving a comment below. (Scroll all the way down to the very bottom of this post to see the comments section. No sign in required to comment, but if you’re not a WordPress member, please leave your first name and a way to get a hold of you so I can contact you if you win!)
If your class was doing a science fair, which of the following questions would you be most interested to see answered and why:
Psst! All of the above questions are experiments in Candy Experiments 2!
This giveaway ends at midnight (PST) on Saturday, March 14, 2015. Don’t wait!
**This giveaway has ended. Please check back again soon for more giveaways!**
The Fine Print: Participation is optional. Only one entry per person. No purchase is necessary to participate. Available to US participants only. There will be one winner. The winner will be randomly selected. I will email the winner between Sunday, March, 15 -Tuesday, March 16. The winner will have 72 hours to respond and provide me with contact information so I can get their prize to them. If the winner does not respond within 72 hours, the winner forfeits the prize and another winner will randomly be selected (in which case the new winner will be notified and the same terms apply). The winner will be announced on this blog once eligibility has been confirmed. This giveaway is solely sponsored by Squarehead Teachers and Loralee Leavitt. It is not affiliated with WordPress or any other sponsor(s). Void where prohibited. If you have additional questions, please contact me!
Maybe I’m biased, but I think teachers should be revered like football players. This video proves it. Check out this quick video for yourself:
Giveaway coming later this week!
With summertime fun and sugary snacks providing so many distractions, can your children actually learn anything over the summer? Yes, they can, if you sneak in some science with fun activities like candy experiments.
Our family created candy experiments when my oldest daughter was four, and wanted to put Nerds in water. Since her first experiment, we have destroyed candy in dozens of ways and learned about chemistry, physics, and nutrition along the way. Here are a few of our favorites.
Melting: If summertime heat makes your kids complain that they’re going to melt, try melting candy to see what’s inside. If you microwave Starbursts, you’ll see shiny spots of oil that separate out from the candy. If you microwave chocolate, you might start the blooming process, in which unstable chocolate crystals start to move and separate, causing white cocoa butter “bloom” to form on the outside of the bar.
Cotton Candy Experiments: Some candy experiments use cotton candy, a summertime staple. To make cotton candy vanish, dip a puff of cotton candy in water. As capillary action carries water up the network of tiny candy strands, the water dissolves the candy from the bottom up. You can also weigh cotton candy to see how much sugar it really contains–you might be surprised to see that cotton candy is mostly air!
Find Hidden Candy: You’ll find hidden sugar in all sorts of summer snacks, from popsicles and ice cream bars to “healthy” power bars and sports drinks. To help your kids see how much “hidden candy” they’re eating, read the snack’s nutrition label to see how much sugar it contains. Then weigh candy on a kitchen scale until it matches the weight of the sugar on the label. Eating the snack would be like eating that amount of candy.
You’ll find more summer learning experiments in our book, Candy Experiments, or at www.candyexperiments.com. Enjoy summer learning!
Loralee Leavitt is the author of Candy Experiments, Road Tripping, and Candy Experiments 2 (coming in January 2015). Follow her candy adventures at www.candyexperiments.com
Squarehead Teachers 