Easy and Cheap Smelly Paint

We made smelly paint as part of our 5 senses unit. It's really easy and cheap! All you need is kool-aid, water, and a bowl (and the obvious like paper and a paintbrush). 

All you do is add some water to kool-aid and walah you have smelly paint! Our room smelled sooooo good while the kids were painting. There's no exact science when mixing the kool-aid mix and water. The less water you add the more vibrant your colors will be. A little paint goes a long way. We used three different colors and only needed half a package of each for 10 kids. 

When the paint is wet, the colors are very vibrant and the smell is strong. It does fade a little as it dries. It also loses most of its smell after it dries. Make sure to wear paint shirts, as I'm pretty sure kool-aid will stain clothes. 

You can read more about my 5 senses unit from a previous post here.

On a different note, I'm looking for some new blogs to follow. I've switched over to Bloglovin since google took down google reader. And in doing so, have weeded out some blogs and added new ones. So if you have a blog, please leave a comment with the link so I can check it out! 

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Reward Jars

I still use candy as a reward. I know the world of education is moving away from giving out sweets, but our school still lets us give out candy. I do try to give it out very moderately. The two types of candy I give out, are skittles and Hershey's kisses. 

The skittles are used as a classroom management tool. I give out skittles when our room is cleaned up quickly, everyone is sitting on the carpet correctly, we made good choices at lunch, etc. I don't give them out EVERYTIME something is done correctly, just randomly. Sometimes everyone in the class will get one, and sometimes it's only the students making the right choices. I usually only give out skittles once or twice a day. 

The other candy I give out is Hershey's kisses. If you've never heard Dr. Jean's Kiss Your Brain song, it's a hoot. My preschoolers think it is the funniest song. They beg to hear it every morning. The song encourages kids to kiss your brain (kiss your fingers then touch your brain) when they do something smart. I use the Hershey's kisses as an academic reward. When we are doing assessments I will give them out. I will also give them out when I can tell students are paying attention and putting a lot of thought in to their answers/statements.

I used some Dollar Tree containers and a couple packages of stickers (from Hobby Lobby) to make my reward jars this year. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. These will look great on my teacher shelf in my classroom. 

Hope your enjoying the last little bit of summer!