Hair Gel Writing Practice Bags

Over the summer I attended a sight words workshop at the National I Teach K conference in Las Vegas presented by Mary from Sharing Kindergarten.

She shared her sight word stations and at one station she has the kids practice writing their sight words on hair gel bags!

GENIUS!

No mess- but all the 'tactile fun' of finger paint and/or shaving cream!

She used gallon size bags- since I was making a class set, I opted for quart size!

Fast forward to now where I watch my kinders struggle each day with fine motor issues!

So it was time to make some hair gel bags to practice our letters and numbers!

Now we are all ready for some fine motor

So how did I make these bags?!

I bought 5 bottles of CHEAP hair gel (I wound up only needing 3.5, but will keep the remaining gel to make new bags for those that find too much 'TLC' in their existence!)

I had a box of food coloring I use for playdough making in the cabinet so I was all set to make bags in all colors!

I purchased sandwich and quart size bags. 

I made a writing line 'template' to slide in the bags.

First I squeezed some gel into the sandwich size bag.  I didn't measure it- just eyed it!

Then I added a few drops of food coloring to the gel 

I closed the bag- getting out as much air as I could- and started squeezing and squishing the bag to mix the colors 

This is what it looked like once it was all 'mixed' (it doesn't take long or much effort!) 

I printed the writing line onto cardstock, cut it out and taped the bag to the cardstock template in 3 places across the top

This is what it looked like once it was all affixed to the template 

I slipped the gel bag/writing template combo into the quart size bag and got as much air out as possible before sealing the bag 

Now they are ready to practice writing letters and/or numbers!

'Erasing' is easy!  Simply rub the space back and forth! 

All set to practice the next letter/number! 

Keep them stored flat!

They are also great to have at your guided reading/small group instruction table!  There is no way to break out finger paint or shaving cream during a small group lesson, but these bags serve the same purpose without the mess- or crazy clean up!

They can be used for writing words too!

If a bag happens to 'pop' it is housed inside a second bag so it will be easy to spot a 'leak' before it is too late!

You can make your bags seasonally tinted or go for a rainbow of colors like I did!

Until next post,