Down by the Sea!

Our oceans and beaches week was cut a bit short due to a very unexpected hospital stay on my part.  All of our unfinished activities will be saved for some Parents' Night Out adventures, but here is a quick look at our three days of sea fun!

We used dot paints to create colorful fish that can be found here.

We created some sea creature crayon rubbings with these plates.

How about some adorable hand print fish??  Absolutely!!

No ocean week would be complete with some actual water play.  The children were much neater about this than I expected, I had towels galore on hand, just in case!

My Pre-K kiddos got some hands-on learning activities courtesy of Homeschool Creations.

 Pom-Pom Tweezing

 Fish Counting

Tracing

And we also got some fine-motor water exploration with a pipette activity. Check out the cool shell-shaped bathtub applique!

Up Next: Space Week!!!

Ice Science

Monkey is obsessed with 'explosion' experiments....seriously....obsessed.  He attended camp last summer and was given a chance to make a volcano erupt and has repeated the experiment a number of times at home.  In his kindergarten class this year, he had an opportunity to renew his interest in 'explosions' when the class conducted a similar experiment.  I've had to come up with new and interesting ways of combining baking soda and vinegar, so why not make some baking soda ice?

I wasn't exactly sure if there was an appropriate way to make baking soda ice, so I mixed up a solution and poured it into the ice trays.  At first, it looked a bit too watery, so I tossed another dollop of baking soda into each mold and hoped for the best.

I supplied the children with some vinegar mixed with liquid watercolor and they went to work.

The reaction is somewhat slower than you might expect, but once it begins, the children are delighted.  And it's quite lovely.

Bear wanted to find out what would happen if he dumped all of his vinegar into his tray.

And, of course, Monkey was thrilled when class was over and he got to finish up the rest of the baking soda ice cubes.

Next time, we might try to freeze the vinegar instead!!

Need a super simple preschool science experiment?  Try Ice Cube Color Mixing!

Make ice cubes in primary colors, have the children each choose two cubes and observe!

I had the children write their own labels so they could stop back and check on their cups.

We were SO excited to see our results!

Melting and color mixing all in one experiment!  So simple!

No time to make colorful ice cubes?  Need science NOW?  Ok, try this one: Solid, Liquid, Gas Demonstration.  All week, we talked about the three different states of water, but it is a fairly abstract concept for preschoolers until it is demonstrated.

I slid my two Learning Towers over to the stove so the children could get a good (but safe) view.  Add an ice cube to a shallow pan and turn up the heat!  Observe!

We talked about what was happening to the ice, it was melting, it was becoming steam, it was evaporating - oh, the language development!  I even held a glass lid over the steam to 'catch it in a cloud' and then allowed it to 'rain' back down into the pan.  The children were particularly overjoyed with the very last little puff of steam once the water evaporated completely.  They literally yelled, 'Do it again!' in unison.  So, we did.

I've been teaching for over half my life and it still never ceases to amaze me how the simplest things to us as adults can be the most wondrous to a child.

So go try some science!  Be amazed!

Preschool Science: Water!

We had a blast last week exploring all things water and ice!  I think next year, I will have to expand this topic for at least another week, we did so much and there is still so much left to discover!

We started the week off with an Absorb/Repel Exploration Station, inspired by Little Bins for Little Hands.  I set up a variety of items including foil, foam, a sponge, a tissue, a cloth napkin, a plastic bag, a wooden block, a plastic block, parchment paper, construction paper and bubble wrap.  I secured everything to the table and gave the children a bowl of water and a pipette and the testing began.

As they tested, we used the words ABSORB and REPEL.  Bear was surprised that the parchment paper repelled at first, but after a while, absorbed the water he had put on it earlier.  He kept testing and testing, just to be sure it would happen every time.

After all of our testing was complete, we documented our findings in our science journals.

To further demonstrate absorption, we built sugar cube towers and added some water and food coloring.  Then we watched.

I think I got a bit excited about the rapid absorption and we ended up with a puddle.

But then we added a new word to our science adventures: DISSOLVE!!

The second time around, I was a bit more conservative and our towers stayed upright.

It took a loooooooong time, but that color did finally make its way up to the second cube.

Later in the week, we had a Float/Sink Exploration Station.  

I used a few fun holiday items we had around the classroom as well as a penny, rock, marble, plastic lid, wooden bead, plastic shape cutter, etc.  Anything would work as long as there is a balance of items that will sink and float.

I nearly had to drag the kiddos away from this one to document!!

More water and ice fun coming soon!

Our Literary Summer: Week 4 - Yes, Let's

I'm a little late posting about the fourth week in our summer literary adventure.  We were super-busy doing family things after Daddy returned from 12 days out of town.  Our fourth book was Yes, Let's by Galen Goodwin Longstreth.  

The story follows a family on a fun day trip into the woods and shows, in very detailed illustrations, everything they did that day: swimming, picnicking, hiking, etc.  I wasn't able to take pictures of many of the activities we did this week, but here's a quick look at how we spent our time.

Underwater Art - watercolor and foam shapes

Hand Print Boats

Going on a Bear Hunt from Greg and Steve's Kids in Action CD

I'm Packing a Picnic Lunch Game

This is a fun memory game to play with the class.  Sit in a circle and start off by saying, "I'm packing a picnic lunch, and I'm taking sandwiches (or any other food)".  The child next to you says, "I'm packing a picnic lunch, and I'm taking sandwiches and (they choose a food).  Continue around the circle with the next person repeating what the previous people have said and then adding on.  If you get around enough times, things will start to get very silly and giggly!!

And the best part of our week, playing picnic!!  The children set out Play Silks and pretend to be all of the places pictured in the story.

Easy Peasy!

Mud Day!

I have a problem with change.  Not the 'normal' problem with change, exactly the opposite.  Most people resist change, happy to stay in their cozy, predictable bubbles for as long as possible. 

Not I! 

I love change, especially when it comes to moving things around in my preschool classroom.  Even as a child, I rearranged my bedroom furniture monthly and it was a 10ft x 12ft space with four pieces of large furniture.  Now that I have larger spaces and tons more stuff to work with, things can get a bit wild.

My biggest problem to date has been our outdoor classroom.  Unfortunately, our yard is just a dirt lot with an inconvenient hill at the back wall, which cuts at least 6ft. of potentially usable space right out of our play area.

Ever since we adopted our chickens, we've been mulling over the best way to work their area into our yard.  We've moved the coop a few times, but I finally determined that if we wanted to have a successful garden, the chickens would have to be placed on the opposite side of the yard.  This final move meant that even more of our usable play space would be sacrificed. 

(As a side note, my husband just built the chickens a veritable Club Med - more on that later.)

I decided to use the flat back of the chicken coop as support for our mud kitchen - which is this kitchen that someone donated to my preschool a few years ago.  When I replaced it with a wooden cabinet, I didn't have the heart to get rid of it, so it moved outside and our mud kitchen came to be.

Up until this week, I don't think it's ever truly been a mud kitchen - just a little sand, straw and water, but never REAL squishy, smooshy, cool mud.

Because the kitchen moved, the kitchen table had to move, and it was placed, you guessed it, on the inconvenient hill I mentioned.  Time for a little science lesson:  What happens when you start filling pots and pans with water on a table placed on a hill? 

Puddles!  And puddles = MUD!

I'll be the first to admit that this is not an everyday occurrence, sometimes the kids get a bit too rowdy and it's too chilly to hose them down, sometimes I don't feel like changing 4 or 5 kids and washing clothes and shoes, sometimes the children in attendance aren't that into getting dirty.  For whatever reason, planetary alignment, chemistry between the kiddos, precisely the right amount of coffee for Miss Lindsey, this day was the perfect day for mud!

They were all involved, scooping, pouring, filling, stirring.  There were little explorers elbow deep in the stuff.  Each child assigned himself or herself a job.  No one got in any one's way.  No one stopped to argue about which child was using which cup/spoon/pan.  This was serious work.

I even managed to get a video of the action to share with the Moms and Dads - something like this can't really be summed up in pictorial form alone.

And, ya know, I must admit that clean-up on my part only took a few minutes, certainly not the disaster I had previously envisioned.  I have a feeling mud day may make an appearance more often!

Color Bath Fun!

Monkey has been asking me for weeks for shaving cream paint in the bathtub.  I've made paint for him on a number of occasions in the past, but since the arrival of little brother, I've been hesitant to give him shaving cream since they usually bathe together - we love saving water around here!

Anyway, he'd been asking for so long, I thought, why not take it a step further and break out the theme baths we used to do pretty much every night when he went through a 'no bath' phase.

Since he is much older now, he got to pick the color ahead of time and then go on a 'treasure hunt' to find things of that color.  I'd assist by weeding out things that weren't bath-worthy and by making the desired color of shaving cream paint (which is just shaving cream and liquid watercolor or food coloring).

Of course, what color does he choose on the first day?? PINK!!  Ack!  How in the world is he going to find enough pink stuff to fill a bathtub??

I'm one of those Moms who believes colors are for everyone and while I'm not opposed to pink toys, most of our toys are wooden and the few non-wooden toys we do have are generally primary colors or green, which, for some reason is always lumped in with the primaries in the world of toys.

So, I sent him off with his little collection bag and he had a blast wandering around looking for pink stuff.  We had to raid the spring sensory bin stuff, which hadn't been put away yet, but he managed to cobble together quite an impressive collection.

And because I'm still a bit paranoid about Bear and the fact that he puts everything into his mouth, he got his own mini pink bath.

 "Mom, can I put the flower in the paint?"  Sure!!

"Look! I'm cracking eggs, see the yolk in there?"  The best part about this exploration is that the following day, he requested waffles for lunch and then asked, "Do we need eggs to make waffles?"  Yup!  "Can I crack them?"  Yup!  He's always refused to help with the eggs when we cook.  Maybe it's the addition of our chickens or maybe it's added confidence from a bath time practice session.

Monkey's second color choice this week was ORANGE!  Yet another color we don't have much of in our house, however, we were headed out to the Dollar Tree that day and I kept a lookout for things we could use.

I found a bunch of foam shapes and foam sheets that I cut into strips to make letters or pictures and some neat glow necklaces so he could take a bath in the dark.  We added all of that to the foam numbers and letters we already had and some more shaving cream paint and he was off!

Ok, I know you're wondering about that lobster, aren't you?  That, my friends, is an interesting tale.  A long while back, when we first started shopping at Trader Joe's, that lobster lived on a tree in the center of the peanut butter aisle.  Monkey was always asking me about what it was and why it lived on that tree - ummmmm, no idea???

One week, we went to TJ's and the lobster was gone - Monkey was distraught, he wanted to know where the lobster had gone.  I told him that if he wanted to know, he was going to have to ask someone who worked there.  At this point, he had yet to develop his compulsion to talk to every single person he sees and was a bit nervous to ask, so it took a few weeks to build up the courage.

Finally, after nearly a month of wondering where the lobster had gone, he asked the girl checking us out.  As the checkout girl was trying to explain that the lobster wasn't feeling well and had fallen down and that maybe someday he might be back on the tree, one of the managers overheard the discussion and said, "Hold on, I'll show you."  Before I knew what was happening, she came back with that lobster (which looks much smaller when it's hanging on a tree), handed it to Monkey and said, "He can go home with you, you can take baths together."

Well, Mr. Literal took that lobster home and has taken baths with him ever since.  I keep asking when we might return Lobster to his home at TJ's, but Monkey tends to ignore that line of questioning, so I guess he's here to stay.

Bear didn't get a lobster in his baby orange glow bath, but he does have his little Sophie the Giraffe in there, so we included the wildlife all around!

Monkey's last choice this week was red - of course, because I'd already used most of the red food coloring for the pink and orange baths!  So our red bath was more pink that the pink bath was, but everyone had a grand old time anyway!

The best part about red is that we could add all of Monkey's red Legos, which are always a hit in the tub!  I wasn't able to get too many pictures, but he was in his red bath until it was cold because he built a machine with those Legos and had an elaborate scene going on for quite sometime.

He also managed to find time for some cooking since we added our strainer and a plastic spice jar from our outdoor classroom.

And of course, no color bath would be complete without the shaving cream paint!




I'm really hoping for some green, blue and yellow this week, but we'll see!