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I Spy Mystery Cauldron Center Idea & How to differentiate the activity

10/29/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here's a Mystery Cauldron Halloween center activity idea that can be easily differentiated from toddler to elementary school student! It may also be a fun theme to add to your classroom's calming corner if you have one.

This post will first outline the set up, and then list some adaptation suggestions to suit kids from toddler to fifth-grader!
Materials needed
  • A plastic medium sized cauldron (or use a similar container to substitute)
  • A bag of rice
  • Green food coloring
  • A bunch of small plastic creepy crawly items

Picture

Set up
Mix the rice and green food coloring in a bowl until all of the rice turns green. 
Picture
Warning: Touching it with your hands does make them turn a bit green. It will wash off eventually. 

Let the green rice dry in the sun. Then pour into the cauldron. Layer the plastic creepy crawly items as the rice goes in. 
Picture
Then let the kids explore to see what they can find in the cauldron. 
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Depending what items you put in, you could make a list for what your kids need to find.
Example:
2 spiders
4 ants
5 snakes
. . . and so on.
I made a list of creepy crawlies for my preschooler to spy and find in the cauldron. Our learning goal was to practice number recognition and counting skills. He loved the activity so much that I made an I spy cauldron worksheet for him to keep practicing in a mystery picture search. 
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ADAPTATIONS FOR DIFFERENTIATION
After being in a position of teaching multiple grade levels throughout the week, I now always like to stop and think about how the same activity could be adapted and differentiated across the levels. Below I've listed some ways that I would adapt this same activity for different age groups:

Toddler 
Sensory play and learning names.

Preschool
Counting, number recognition, and creepy crawly categories.

Kindergarten & first-grade 
Counting, and addition and subtraction talks e.g. If there are four spiders in the cauldron and I've found one, how many more spiders do I need to find?

2nd-Grade
Instead of listing 'find four spiders', make addition and subtraction sentences for them to solve and figure out how many of each item they must find. 
Example:
Find in the Mystery Cauldron
2 + 2 spiders
3 + 6 snakes
1 + 4 snails
etc. 

3rd-Grade
Same concept as the 2nd-grade idea, except increase the math difficulty to multiplication skills, or mix the problems with a variety of + - X problems.

4th Grade
Increase the difficulty to the approaches outlined above by introducing some division questions to solve and find.

5th Grade 
Set a timer for kids to find as many creepy crawly items as possible inside the mystery cauldron. After the timer is up, instruct students to write each type of creepy crawly types that they found as a fraction.  Example,
How many did you find in total? 20
How many of those were spiders (write as a fraction)? 3/20 
How many of those were snakes (write as a fraction)? 17/20


This Mystery Cauldron center activity can get a bit messy, but I hope it will bring some fun to your learning stations this week. If you have any of your own ways to adapt this activity to your class, please share in the comments section below; I'd love to hear them. 

Happy Halloween!

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      • Case of the 100 Missing Treats
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      • Case of The Alien Apocalypse
      • Case of The Angry Adder
      • Case of The Bee Bandits
      • Case of the Christmas Chaos
      • Case of the Cursed Classrooms
      • Case of The Disappearing Donuts
      • Case of The Divided Dragon's Division Review
      • Case of The Dream Snatcher
      • Case of The Egg Thief
      • Case of The Forgetful Pharaoh
      • Case of The Furious Falls Winds
      • Case of the Giant Goblin
      • Case of The Gobbler's Curse
      • Case of The Graduation Gremlins
      • Case of the Great Zoo Escape
      • Case of The Greedy Gnome
      • Case of the Halloween Heist
      • Case of the Heartbroken Heroes
      • Case of the Invisible Illusionist - Integers Math Mystery Activity
      • Case of the Jumpy Jack-O-Lanterns Halloween Math Mystery
      • Case of The Jungle Joker
      • Case of The Kidnapped Groundhog
      • Case of The Litterbug
      • Case of the Lost Leprechaun
      • Case of the Magnificent Growth Mindset
      • Case of The Mathattan Meltdown
      • Case of Mean Mountain
      • Case of The Millennium Bug
      • Case of the Mirror Madness
      • Case of The Misplaced Pot of Gold
      • Case of the Missing Campers
      • Case of the Missing Macaw
      • Case of The Monster Mix-Up
      • Case of the Never-Ending Rain
      • Case of the Outback Outlaw
      • Case of The Phantom Phoenix
      • Case of the Pickpocketing Pirate
      • Case of The Poisonous Pizzas
      • Case of The Puzzled Pirate
      • Case of The Robot Robbery
      • Case of The Rogue Runner
      • Case Of The Rotten Eggs
      • Case of The School Invaders
      • Case of The Selfish Elf
      • Case of The Shogun's Sword
      • Case of The Snowman Army
      • Case of The Sticky Bank Burglary
      • Case of The Super Bad Superhero
      • Case of the Thanksgiving Thief
      • Case of The Thankless Turkey
      • Case of The Time Traveling Troll
      • Case of The Tricking Treat
      • Case of The Valentine Villain
      • Case of The Vengeful Vampire
      • Case of The Zombie Elves
    • Junior Reading Mysteries >
      • Bo-Peep's Stolen Sheep
      • Broken Beanstalk
      • Miss Muffet's Missing Muffins
      • Mother Hubbard's Robbed Cupboard
      • Poisoned Porridge
      • Ruined Ruby Slippers
      • Spooky Singer
      • The Ever After Emerald
      • The Greedy Guest
    • Reading Mystery Video Hooks >
      • Burrow Slime
      • EGGpocalypse
      • Fool's Gold Read Mystery
      • Forest Grime - Reading Mystery
      • Haunting Hat - Reading Mystery
      • Humpty's Fall Reading Mystery
      • Knight's Tail
      • Poisoned Valentine
      • Rescue Rudolph
      • Stolen Time
      • Teacher Toads - Reading Mystery
      • Turkey Trouble!
      • Twinkle's Lost Shine
      • Which Witch? - Reading Mystery
      • Wizard Blizzard
    • Math Quest Video Hooks >
      • Escape Monster Mansion
      • Over The Rainbow Math Quest
      • Raiders of The Lost Egg
      • Redbeard's Rebellion
      • Reindeer Roundup
      • School Jungle Jam
      • The Heartless Queen
      • The Terrible Turkey Takeover
    • A-Z Letter Detectives Video Hook >
      • The Case of the Alien's Apples
      • The Case of the Banana Bandit
      • The Case of the Cat's Cookies
      • The Case of the Dragon's Diamonds
      • The Case of the Eagle's Eggs
      • The Case of the Frog's Flowers
      • The Case of the Ghost's Gumballs
      • The Case of the Hippo's Hat
      • The Case of the Iguana's Ice Cream
      • The Case of the Jaguar's Jellybeans
      • The Case of the Kangaroo's Kite
      • The Case of the Lion's Lollipops
      • The Case of the Monster's Map
      • The Case of the Ninja's Necklace
      • The Case of the Octopus's Oar
      • The Case of the Pirate's Pizza
      • The Case of the Queen's Quiver
      • The Case of the Robot's Rocket
      • The Case of the Sloth's Skateboard
      • The Case of the Turtle's Toys
      • The Case of the Unicorn's Umbrella
      • The Case of the Vampire's Violin
      • The Case of the Wizard's Wand
      • The Case of the X-Hero's X-Ray
      • The Case of the Yeti's Yo-Yo
      • The Case of the Zebra's Zucchinnis
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