Light Cube: Dry Erase Story

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Drawing on the Light Cube can be a calming visual experience. The light’s glow from beneath the drawing board is a great background for tracing! In this segment, we gave our friend Malak a R49620 Dry Erase Worksheet Cover and asked her to draw a special story!

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Malak was excited to get started but didn’t know where to begin. We started by asking her to draw a snowman, and describe the character to us. “Okay! I can do that!” So as Malak drew, she told us everything about the snowman character she had just doodled.

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All the characters she drew were from the movie Frozen™. She could name each of them individually and put great detail into their appearances, everything from the various hairstyles to the point of the reindeer’s nose!

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It’s great working with the Dry Erase Worksheets because they are re-usable. Kids can draw on the Light Cube without having to cover the light with a sheet of paper. If children would like to copy the artwork onto paper, simply place the sheet on top of the drawing and trace. Use a paper towel or a rag to erase the dry erase marker.

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While Malak spoke about the movie’s storyline, she continued to draw things that related to the movie. Her drawings filled up the full space of the worksheet cover like a visual storytelling aid! It was a great exercise and one you can try with your students, too.

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Light Cube Jelly Play

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Kids love experimenting with new and weird materials. No wonder, then, that we had the perfect opportunity to play with giant gelatine blocks over the Light Cube–the kids were so intrigued! Using feathers to decorate the gelatine was an added fine motor activity that you can incorporate in your own gelatine block play! We detail more about this process below.

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Gelatine blocks are great because they are transparent, meaning that they are clear enough to be seen through. Some gel blocks can be thicker depending on how you mix up the quantities (we will discuss more about how to make your own gel block below!) This is a great opportunity for teachers to talk about the differences between opaque (not see-through), translucent (somewhat see-through) and transparent (see-through) objects!

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The gel block has great texture and movement too! On the Light Cube, it looks even better because it glows with the light underneath.

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We asked the campers to “decorate” the gel block with fancy additions such as pipe cleaners and feathers. We used shimmering, glittery pipe cleaners to help bounce the light around even more.

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Both campers were really excited to see that the gel block acted like a stand for the feathers and pipe cleaners. It was soft enough to press the materials through but also firm enough to keep the materials in their spots without letting them tip over!

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Since we had the Light Cube set to a white glow, it made the colors of the feathers pop out! Look at the contrast between the yellow and the blue. These are complementary colors, meaning that they are placed directly across one another on the color wheel. Another cool lesson for students: learning about color groups!

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Once we got started, it was hard to stop! Fabian here decided to curl one of the pipe cleaners into a spiral shape and jut it into the gel block for fun.

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To make your gelatine block just like ours you will need the following:

• Knox® Gelatine (find a box of packets at any baking supplies or supermarket near you!)

• Heat-safe bowl or large mold, depending on your preference

• Hot or boiling water

• Cold water

• Measuring cup

• Baby oil

• Whisk

First, measure the cup capacity of the mold you are using. Simply use a measuring cup to keep track of how much water you use to fill the mold. Once you have a definite number, divide it in half. One half of the water cup capacity will need to be boiled while the rest will need to cool in the fridge. You can pour out half of the water into a kettle or sauce pan and heat it up until boiling. For every cup of water used to fill the mold, you will need to use 1 package of the Knox® Gelatine powder. While you are waiting for the water to boil, spread some baby oil onto the mold. This will help loosen the gelatine out of the mold when it is set. Pour the hot/boiled water into the mold and mix in with the gelatine powder using the whisk. When the gelatine is fully mixed into the water and there are no remaining clumps, pour in the remaining half of the water that was cooling in the fridge. Stir the mixture with the whisk. Place the gelatine mold into the fridge to set for 3 hours or leave overnight.

In the morning, pop out the gelatine mold. You can use a long spatula to ease the block out of the mold. Flip the mold over to set it on top of a tray. Place the tray onto the Light Cube and turn on the white glow to get started on your own neat sensory-fine motor play activity!

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We love the campers’ priceless reactions to the activity–they spent more time on it than we’d planned!

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Light Cube: Glowing Art by Twins At Play!

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Kristen from Twins at Play is featured in another great post about the Educational Light Cube. In this edition, she gets her twins to play with neon tempera paints and black lights on the Light Cube!

To see the full post, please view HERE!
Kristen says:
“My twins had such a blast with this activity!
We used:
 
neon tempera paint, 
and printer paper
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With the Educational Light Cube remote control, we turned the light cube to on one of it’s blue hues.  We switched around between blues and purples. We also turned on a few black lights. I put one of the Educational Light Cube trays from the accessory pack on to the light cube, then squirted some neon tempera paint right on to the tray. After that, I gave my twin boys paint scrapers and let them make designs, then they pressed printer paper on to the paint, gently pushed down and gently lifted the paper. They ended up with very pretty Art prints!
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We did this before bed, there was very little clean up.
This can be done in daylight with regular colored tempera paint too!”
Thanks to Kristen @ Twins at Play for putting together this awesome post!
Images and Text © Kristen from Twins at Play blog

To see more about our R59601 Educational Light Cube, visit here!

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Educational Light Cube: Sorting Manipulatives

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Getting students to sort manipulatives is a double-duty task. While they sort and differentiate between the objects in front of them, students get to exercise their fine motor skills, too!

 

On the R59601 Educational Light Cube, sorting gets so much more fun to do! Turn on the fading function of the Light Cube to gradually cycle through colors. This produces a calming effect on students, getting them to slow down and focus on their task.

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Our first step was to find a snack platter at the dollar store. Use the snack platter to encourage proficiency in identifying like and unlike objects. Gather a variety of different types of manipulatives. We suggest using items such as buttons (R2131 Bright Buttons), letters or numbers beads (R2185 Math Beads and R2184 Manuscript Letter Beads), mosaics (R15367 Heart Mosaics) and more! Place all the manipulatives in the center of the snack platter.

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Ask students to sort through all the different manipulatives and pick out similar ones. Place similar items in one of the snack platter dividers. Repeat for all other items in the snack platter.

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If you cycle through the colors more rapidly on the Light Cube, it challenges students to notice the differences between objects that are transparent versus those that are opaque.

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It’s a great exercise that students will love to try!

More curriculum-based activities on the Light Cube:

Use readily-available materials for counting and sorting

• Build stacking abilities with dollar store party cups

• Find out just how sturdy the Light Cube is!

Share your stories about the Light Cube! What activities do your students use the Light Cube for?

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Light Cube: Math Straws

2014-11-20-FeatureImageExplore mathematics on the Light Cube using simple items you can find at your local department store or dollar store! The Light Cube will focus students’ attention as they manipulate the materials to build skills in early numeracy!

IMG_0559In this edition of Light Cube lessons, we’ve decided to focus on counting and sorting. To do this, you will need a package of clear colorful straws, some transparent numbered stickers and 10 clear plastic drinking cups.

IMG_0565First, we tacked down our stickers to the Light Cube. The stickers we found are numbered 1-10 so you can explore counting in different quantities, or for advanced learning, develop skills in skip-counting. We’ve decided to skip-count by the number 2. This is a great starting point for discussing the differences between odd and even numbers.

You can additionally create your own stickers by using clear scotch tape and writing numbers on the tape with permanent marker. Paste down the tape onto the Light Cube. Tip: If you own a Light Cube tray, you can use write the numbers directly onto the tray with dry-erase markers.

Ask your students to pick out the same number of straws as the numbers indicated on the Light Cube. Place the straws you’ve picked out directly onto the Light Cube underneath each number.

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Once we had explored the basics of skip-counting, we moved onto bigger numbers. You can mix the digits to make these larger numbers. To contain the larger number of straws, use the clear cups.

IMG_0593To reinforce your students’ counting skills, mix up a random amount of straws into each cup and ask the student to correct to the proper amount. They must either add or subtract the straws.

To take students’ learning one step further, ask them to imagine that each straw has a certain value, such as 2. Therefore, each straw represents the number 2. If you have labeled a cup as the number 6, students will have to place 3 straws inside the cup to reach the right amount.

The glow of the Light Cube is a great base for exploring abstract mathematical concepts as students are focused on the materials they work with.

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Educational Light Cube: Dimensional Art by Twins at Play!

The awesome sensory and light play blog Twins at Play delivers a new post about our Educational Light Cube! Check out this great combination of our Light Cube Building set and Constructa Clips on a beautiful illuminated surface and the coolest sculpture you’ve seen yet! 

© Kristen from Caution! Twins at Play! blog

This is what Kristen from Twins at Play had to say about her twins’ experiences with these products:

My twins and I have been enjoying making awesome shapes, sculptures, and art on the light cube with the Constructa Clips light table building kit! The kit comes with 48 red clips and 32 mylar shapes. The shapes are nice and sturdy but do bend a little for awesome building fun! The shapes are also great for color lessons! I love this kit, it is perfect for the light cube, light table, or even natural light play! They cast great color in sunlight!!

In the photos below, we used the clear plastic trays for the light cube to hang the clips from. Then we were able to build outward and downward with the constructa clips and shapes!  This was a really fun and unique building experience. This was also a very unique light cube/light table play experience.
We also used a plastic straw to create art sculptures. We used the 4 clip constructa clips to attach shapes and then we just put the straw through the whole in the center of the constructa clips. What a fun way to create art and building at the same time on the light cube!!

Thanks to Kristen @ Twins at Play for putting together this awesome post!

To see more about our R59601 Educational Light Cube, visit here!

R60165 Constructa Clips Light Table Building Kit can be viewed in-depth here.

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Educational Light Cube: Sorting Colorful Plastic Circles

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View the beautiful effects of colorful mylar shapes on the Light Cube!Today’s lesson was to experiment with different printed shapes and colors that can be overlapped to create new appearances.

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These mylar shapes were made from tinted transparency sheets. You can find colored transparency sheets at your local dollar store… as page dividers! Cut out simple shapes such as triangles, circles and squares from these special plastic sheets.

Incorporate math lessons with your Light Cube exercise. Teach your students about geometric shapes and their properties! Ask students to describe the shapes to you.

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We asked our art camper Jasmine to combine the shapes together and see what kinds of new colors she could make. Each of the shapes were cut out of differently-colored transparency sheets. These colors, when overlapped, create new color combinations!

IMG_9492The sheets are transparent, meaning that you are able to see light through them. Place the sheets onto the Light Cube and turn on the strobing color function. Watch the transparent sheets change color as they reflect the light underneath.

Explore the meaning of transparent, translucent and opaque. Experiment further with other objects to see the differences between their transparencies.

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Educational Light Cube: Stacking Colorful Cups


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View the dazzling effects of color-changing light on the cube with dollar store variety cups and plastic drinking glasses! Develop fine motor skills through arrangements of stackable cups… see more of this exercise below!


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To start the activity, we first turned on the Light Cube to the ‘white’ setting. Next, we placed a stack of clear-color plastic cups we found at the dollar store on top of the cube. The white brings out the brightness of the clear colors and allows kids to see what inside of the various cups look like when they’re stacked together.


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We next asked our art camper Stephano to take the structure apart. He wanted to see how the individual pieces looked like. Without the bases, these regular dollar variety martini glasses appear quite unique!


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How about we add some more to the mix? Here’s a good look at what happens when you stack multiple cups of the same color together–the colors become extremely saturated, meaning that they are intensified.


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Now let’s add another level of complication to our structure with the bases for the cups.


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Stephano decided to structure the martini glasses in a way that they could easily be stacked together with the bases intact. He decided to place them standing on top of the inside of each cup.


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Next, we amplified the colors of the glasses by changing the cube’s color to red. This created a stark glow throughout the room and helped Stephano focus directly on stacking rather than the colors of the cups.


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Once we turned the cube’s color back to white, we got to see how Stephano had randomly chosen differently-colored cups to stack together. Reflecting back on the activity, Stephano noticed that he wasn’t so worried about which colors he used while he was stacking. Instead he could focus directly on stacking the cups together, and then afterwards enjoyed the surprise when he got to see what combinations of colors he used!


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Educational Light Cube: As Furniture?!

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Yes, you heard right! Our R59601 Educational Light Cube can be used as a wonderful furniture addition to your classroom! The sturdy design makes it perfect not only as a table at the play center, but as a stool, a climbing base and more. 

We recommend placing the Educational Light Cube in a ‘quiet’ location, such as a reading area or playtime corner. It’s a good idea to have the cube fully charged before allowing students to use it as a furniture piece. Charge up the cube the night before to ensure that it has enough battery life (3-4 hours) to be used in the main classroom area. This eliminates the need to leave the AC adapter cord lying on the floor–if you have to have the Light Cube plugged in, tape down the cord or place a cord cover on top to prevent it from becoming a trip hazard.

IMG_8738The Light Cube is a great complement to a variety of educational resources such as x-rays, overhead projection sheet activities and much more!

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The Light Cube doesn’t stand too far off the ground and is sturdy enough to support the weight of a student on it. As a result, it can be used as a light platform. Plus, it is the perfect height–not too high, and not to low! Students can easily kneel at the Light Cube and get the full benefit of being able to experiment with light as they manipulate the materials on top.

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As students become more familiar with the Light Cube, they can extend their learning to incorporate gross motor as well as fine motor skills. Stand or sit up on the Light Cube to measure the size of your feet in comparison to an R5911 True to Life Human X-Ray foot, just like this student did! Or play Light games around the cube! Play memory games and hide various objects under cups, then shuffle them around. There’s tons of things to do on the Light Cube… just using it as a furniture piece alone is lots of fun!

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