Today, we completed two snake projects related to our book, A Study in Emerald, and the kids had fun with a home-made math gameboard.
Stiff Watercolour Paper
Watercoulours and Brushes
My Hand-drawn Snake Template Just Below (Optional)
Permanent Marker (Optional)
Copy the template above and print it directly onto your watercolour paper.
(You may have to trim the paper down to fit into the printer.)
Have the kids use a permenent marker to draw a circular coil on their paper with a snake head at the end, just like the picture above.
On the side of the paper with the snake image, have the kids watercolour the image to their liking.
Flip the paper over and have the kids completely fill the page in a more abstract style of watercolouring.
Cut out the shape of the serpent via its outline.
Then, from the head inwards, cut along the the spiral until you reach the centre.
Punch a hole near the tip of the tail.
Gently knot the end of a long string into the serpent’s tail.
Hang from a high place.
Stick Puppet Snakes
Wooden dowels or pencils
Scraps of pretty paper.
Twist two pipe cleaners togther so that they form a double-strength pipe cleaner.
Attach the doubled strand to the end of a single pipe cleaner.
Coil the single pipe cleaner and the first 1/2-in of the double around the top of a dowel or pencil.
The double strength pipe cleaner should be sticking out at a right angle to the dowel.
Cut one scrap of pretty paper into a trapezoid 1 in wide/tall, 2- and 3-in length, respectively.
Form this into a cone-like shape with a wide enough hole at the tip to allow the double-pipe-cleaner to pass.
Tape this cone together.
Cut more scrips of pretty paper into 1×2-in rectangles or thereabouts. You’ll need 6-10 per snake.
Fold shorter ends of each scrap together, forming each into a tube. tape each tube.
Thread the cone piece, small tip first, onto the double pipe cleaner.
Then, thread tubes onto the pipe cleaner until you have about 1/2 in left at the end.
Turn up the end of the pipe cleaner and double it over a bit to keep the tubes on the length. Enjoy!
4 sheets of paper per player
10 Golden Chocolate Coins, Plastic “Green Leprechaun Gold” Chips from the dollar store, poker chips per child.
Template below (Optional)
Copy the images above and print out 1 set of the four pages for each player.
Using a marker, trace your coin or chip in a snaking pattern 25 times per page and label the circles with the numbers 1-100.
Have the kids place coins on numbers in the pattern you call out.
We tried 3′s to 30, 6′s to 60 etc.
You could also start on a number such as 2-9, and ask the kids to mark every 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. number afterward.
We ended up using the plastic chips for play, and a few golden coins for rewards on particularly difficult patterns!
All done? Never! Check out the Soda Bread, Jam and Mustard Recipes we followed today!