Wind Spinners

1. Wind is the natural movement of air. Wind can move so slowly that it can hardly be felt or blow so hard that it can cause objects to move. Have students use markers on large paper to create a Windy Day chart of: "things that blow away", "things that move but don’t blow away", and "things that don’t move at all". Use the Internet to find out how wind helps people, animals, and plants.
2. Make a wind spinner that will move in the slightest breeze, but won’t blow away. Cut 2 large circles from white poster board. TIP: trace around a large, overturned plastic bowl to get two same-size circles.
3. Decorate both sides of the poster board circles with Crayola Color Sticks. Use your imagination to create a unique design, or trace a roll of masking tape all over the circle and color each area of the design a different color. Choose three favorite colors for each design. Or choose colors that are in the same family (blues and greens or oranges and yellows).
4. Use scissors to cut a slit from the edge to the center of each circle.
5. Nest the poster board circles by sliding each circle into the slit of the other and pulling them together to create a spherical shape. Use tape to hold the circles in place so they are perpendicular to each other.
6. Cut five 12-inch lengths of ribbon. Attach 1 ribbon to the top of the spinner using Crayola Glue or punch holes with a hole punch and tie the ribbon through the holes. Attach remaining ribbons to the bottom edges of the spinner with glue.
7. Hang beside an open window or under a protected porch roof to catch the wind in the spinner flaps.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher led)with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

LA: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships.

LA: Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

MATH: Reason with shapes and their attributes.

SCI: Make observations from media to construct an evidence-based account that Earth events can occur quickly or slowly.

VA: Students will initiate making works of art and design by experimenting, imagining and identifying content.

VA: Students will investigate, plan and work through materials and ideas to make works of art and design.

Research legends about the wind in different cultures, such as Native American wind gods and Indonesian wind folktales.

Work on teams to investigate different names for the wind, such as Chinook and Santa Ana. Create wind spinners with a different wind name on each half of each circle. Share information about each wind name with your classmates.