I had seen these UV beads before and wondered about how I might want to use them with students beyond just building some amazing pipe cleaner jewelry. I did some Pinterest-surfing and found this activity from Buggy and Buddy and knew it was perfect for my 4th grade friends! All I needed was the beads and Amazon Prime provided quickly for that.
- Pipe Cleaners
- UV beads
- Scissors
- The great outdoors
We started out our activity in the classroom (to contain the potential mess). This took longer than I anticipated (a bit more than a half hour), but the kids were totally into making their animals. All I told them to do was make a small animal out of pipe cleaners and the beads. I showed them an example I made (surprisingly, a sloth) for a size reference. When I showed the beads, I told them they were all the same color, so it didn't matter what other groups had in their containers.
We then explained the second part of the activity - they would have build shade shelters with the nature around them to protect the animals they just created from the sun's UV rays. I wish we had more time than we did for this part because the kiddos just going going with building their shelters and there was some AMAZING conversation! They were talking about how to construct their shelters, what materials to use, how to reinforce to hold it, how to maximize the leaves for shade coverage - the list could go on and on! The students struck the jackpot as earlier our grounds people had trimmed down many overgrown branches. No sooner than we turned around to make sure kids were doing what they needed to be doing, we saw multiple kids with huge smiles on their faces with HUGE tree branches. Well, we didn't anticipate that one! What they came up with though was great and they were so bummed when we had to break them down as recess was starting for other students.