New Book

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2D Theater

Here is an activity I stumbled across while planing my Drama/Theatre week. It is good for those kids that are creative but don't necessarily want to perform in front of crowds.

Simply print out the cut out here.

The end result is really limited by your imagination. Below is the one I created as an example for my group.

In case you were wondering here is the story that goes with it:

Once upon time and long ago there was a kingdom. The kingdom was a marvellous place, the whether was good, the soil fertile, the king was kind and the queen was beautiful. Everybody led happy lives. Well, nearly everybody. Not far away enough lived a vicious and blood thirsty dragon. He continually killed the farmer's sheep that lived on the outskirts of the realm. 

One day the farmers got together and petitioned the king for action.

"One day all our sheep will be gone, then he will eat us!" yelled one farmer.

"Once he is finished with us he will come after you!" yelled another.

The king knew something needed to be done so he got together all the smartest minds in his kingdom and they had a brainstorming session on what is to be done.

"Maybe we raise an army and kill it?" considered the army general.

"We could try and scare it off." suggested the head jester.

"We should just move, there is no point" lamented the leader of the pessimists society.

"I know what we can do!" chirped a young voice. The whole court turned to face the noise and found a young girl. "My mum is the best cook in the kingdom, her speciality is Satay Tofu. We can try and convince the dragon to eat that instead"

The king, who wasn't a fan of any of the other ideas, decided the young girl's idea was a winner.

They put a large tray of satay tofu out for the dragon. The dragon spotted it and gobbled it all up. "That is quite nice" the dragon belched.

From that day forward the dragon was a vegetarian. The kingdom was saved. The farmers were happy and the little girl's family became quite rich with all the orders of satay tofu ordered and paid for by the king.

THE END

Toilet Roll Space Ship

Materials

• Aluminium Foil
• Toilet Roll
• Glue
• Paper- Coloured
• Markers/Pencils
• Cardboard from cereal box

Method

1. Cut out wing flaps, these will go on the sides of the rocket, from the cereal box card. Also make a cone to go on top from the same material.
2. Cut slits on the toilet roll to fit the wing flaps into.
3. Cover the wing flaps, the cone cover and the toilet roll in aluminium foil.
4. Make sure you cut the aluminum covering the slits in the toilet roll before you insert the wing flaps.
5. Decorate with windows and rocket fire.

Snowman and other wintry scenes

Materials Needed

• Cotton Balls
• Glue
• Coloured Paper
• Scissors

Method

1. Using the cotton balls make the shape of a snowman. Three circles;biggest on the bottom and smallest on the top.
2. Glue these down.
3. Using coloured paper cut out some arms, facial features and add detail to the back ground if you wish.
4. You can also create other snow scenes with the cotton wool as it can stretch out.

Planet Mobile

This activity is a great way to learn about the planets, their colours and their order.

Materials Needed

• Planet printout (Get it here)
• Scissors
• Glue
• String
• Coloured Paper
• Colour pencils
• Two Popsicle sticks

Method

1. Glue the two Popsicle sticks together to form an 'X' and put it to the side to dry.
2. Colour in all the planets with your pencils, I would suggest to not use markers as it can make it difficult to cut out.
3. Cut out the planets.
4. When the planets have been cut out trace them on the coloured paper, this will be on the back of the planet, and cut these out.
5. Attach a length of string to each spoke of the 'X' you made earlier.
6. Attach the planets to the string by gluing the string in between the planet and coloured card cutout. 
7. You can also cut out the names of the planets and glue on the coloured card as well.
8. You can add sequins or colourful cotton balls or just glittery stuff in general to make the whole thing feel a bit more spacey.

Shooting Stars

This is a good activity to get kids running around.

Materials Needed

• Thick cardboard
• Tissue paper - Lots of different colours.
• Popsicle sticks
• Glue
• Sequins

Method

1. Printout a Star and trace it on some cardboard. Make sure you use good scissors to cut out the star or it will be near impossible.
2. Using your sequins and whatever you can find lying around decorate the star to be as spacey or glittery as possible.
3. Using the tissue paper cut nice long strips of different colours and attach them to the back of the star.
4. Attach the Popsicle stick to be used as a handle.
5. Tell the kids to run around!

Rocket Ship

Here is a picture of a rocket ship we created. All you need is cardboard, paint and tape. Try it yourself!

Relay Games

Relay games can be a lot of fun and you can make them as interesting as you want. Making the 'baton' can be an activity in itself.


Below are two examples.


Suit Case Relay


What you need:

• Cardboard
• Tissue/Crepe Paper- Brown
• Glue
• Scissors

We did this relay in conjunction with an Olympic Games theme day. 

1. We got some old cardboard boxes, sketched and cut out some suitcases with easy hold handles. 
2. Cutting out some tissue/crepe paper we glue it all over the suitcases.
3. We stuck some travel stamps and stickers we found on the internet over it to give it some authenticity. Have a look here.
4. Most of our suitcases didn't last the race as some of the competitors were quite 'passionate'.

Rocket Relay

What you need:

• Different coloured paper
• Cello tape
• Scissors

We did this relay on a space theme day.

1. Roll some paper into a cylinder and stick it together.
2. Cut out a small circle and create a cone, this is for the top of the rocket.
3. Cut out some triangles for flaps on the side of the rocket.
4. To make this one a bit more interesting I put a hula hoop 'planet' at the end and the runners needed to orbit the planet three times before going back to home base.