Sensory Sundial

I work with a group of students who are studying Ancient Rome.  The Ancient Romans told time using a sundial or a water clock.  I chose to adapt the sundial.  
Materials:
Air-dry clay
small paper plates
small rocks
gold glitter (of course)
small craft sticks
glue

Directions:
Push the clay to the edges of the plate.  It does not need to be really thick.  Make a lump in the middle for the stick.  Sprinkle gold glitter on the clay.  Push the glitter into the clay.  Push small rocks around the edges of the clay.  Use glue to add glitter to the craft stick.  Push craft stick in at an angle.  Once the clay dries (at least overnight), tear away the paper plate.

After we finished the sundials, I turned off the lights and used a flashlight to demonstrate how the sundial was used to tell time.  Our sundials were not accurate.

Sensory Valentine

Valentine's day is a great day for a messy sensory project.  My students made Valentines.  I started with a white heart and coated it with glue.  The students added fake rose petals, tinsel, textured shapes, and glittery foam hearts.  We glued the hearts to a piece of poster board.





Most of the materials were purchased at the Dollar Tree.  I would suggest cutting the tinsel into shorter pieces.  It was really long.

Cardinal Sensory Activity

Since we didn't get any measurable snow in January, I decided to incorporate snow into my sensory activity.  I gave each student a picture of a cardinal glued onto a piece of construction paper.  The students added snow (shredded white paper that I ran through a crosscut shredder), pipe cleaner legs, and feathers.  I chose this activity because our state bird is the cardinal, and the teacher was doing a unit on winter animals.

I found my feathers after Christmas at Michael's.  The bag came with red, green, and white feathers.  All I had to do was separate them.  

When I was cleaning out my basement, I found an old box of tractor feed paper.  I ripped off a few pages and ran it through my shredder while I got ready for work.  It was a lot faster than shredding one sheet at a time.