Fun with Magnets

Super Science Fun!


There are two (learning) steps to this activity.  The first step is the fine motor work of cutting up the pipe cleaners.  This can be a hard and frustrating job for little ones because of the wire in the pipe cleaners, so it's better for older ones with more hand strength to do for the younger ones.

Next, place all of the cut up pipe cleaner pieces into a glass jar.  Give each child a magnet and let them explore with moving the magnet on the outside of the glass and then inside the glass.  Talk about WHY the pipe cleaner pieces are moving and then move the activity to all over the house by exploring what else is magnetic.  DON'T ALLOW MAGNETS NEAR ELECTRONICS OF ANY KIND.

Learning About Spring

Welcome Spring!

We did lots of activities this week, however I didn't take many pictures because it was a little to chaotic this week with everyone being here full time!  Everyone was having adjustment periods - including me!

Here are a few activities that we did do!  Enjoy!

Gross Motor:  

Puddle Jumping: I cut some "puddles" out of blue construction paper and the boys jumped from puddle to puddle. First we jumped from one to one, the. We tried jumping further and skipping puddles in between.  A great way to jump and move in the house when you live places where Spring takes a LITTLE longer to arrive.

Intellectual:

Sequencing from seed to food.  I used a template for this from one of my books, however you could easily find pictures from the internet and make your own sequencing activity.

Art:

Flower Printing

I bought some fake flowers from the dollar store and they served three purposes.  

1. I used them as a decoration in a vase for my Easter display.

2. We sketched them one afternoon and drew some beautiful pictures.  Sorry there are no pictures for this activity.  It was a busy day with full time daycare in full gear.

3. I cut off a few petals and put out some paint for the boys to dip and dab (or smear) and they turned out really cute!

Weather Week Part 2

Science: Making Rain

Instructions:

1. Pour approximately 3 inches of boiling water into a glass jar (I used a tall vase from the Dollar Store)
2. Cover the jar with a plate and wait 5 minutes
3. Put 3 ice cubes on the plate

Explanation:

The cold plate causes moisture in the warm air (caused by the boiling water in the jar).  The moisture condenses and forms water droplets.  You can compare this to what happens outside when it rains.  Warm, moist air rises and meets the colder air high in the atmosphere.  The water vapor condenses and forms precipitation that falls to the ground in the form of rain.

Sensory: We made a "Snowy Day" scene using a couple bags of cotton balls (Dollar Store) and some "snowy" animals that were a part of our collection downstairs.  On the second day of play (when I took this picture), I threw in some corks to add to the imagination in their play.  My kids imagination turned them into trees.  What will your child come up with?

Math: Rain Drop Matching Game

I made 48 raindrops and put shapes and colours on all of them.  While the children sat on their chairs, we all sang "Rain Rain Go Away" and I dropped the raindrops randomly all over the floor.  Once they were all dropped, the children raced to find all of the pairs they could.  This game can be competitive (see who finds the most pairs) or cooperative (work together to beat a specific time).

Science: Learning About a Thermometer

We watched a quick video on YouTube about thermometers and then used this printable.  We worked together to write on the numbers, then we checked our forecast for the day and the weekend.  We were on the way towards a major warm-up, so they were able to see a huge difference in temperature, which was great!  I then used the black crayon to show them what a 'summer' temperature would look like on a thermometer.

Science: What Does the Wind Blow Experiment

I created a simple table with a YES and NO column and then collected 8 random toys.  I blew each of the toys and the kids took turns filling in the table.

Art: Cloud Painting

This was my favourite activity of the week because of an event that came out of it.  I knew in advance that we didn't have Grey paint, but we would mix it.  I took out each of the paints, looking for grey and then made the sad announcement that this activity wouldn't work because there was no Grey.  My daughter (6) was quite sad and suggested we painted white clouds instead.  My son (3) looked at both of us and said in a very empathetic voice "It's OK mommy and sister!  Let's just mix the black and white and make grey on our own!"  So I went along with it and he was very excited (and his sister very proud) when it worked out!

Weather Week Part 1

A week full of weather ideas!

This week we added some sight words with pictures to our Center Time Wall.  There are many more that you can make, just use your imagination and developmental age of your child to come up with words.  I printed the words using a simple Word document and inserting a table.  Once printed, I drew pictures to represent each word.  You could also use Google Images to find pictures if you so wish.

Literacy: A simple game of memory using Weather Terms and pictures.  Check out the website MES English for lots of other games and printables.  I used these cards when I taught ESL overseas a few years ago.

Math: We started talking about graphing this week and made a simple graph to keep track of the weather for the month for March.  You can find my printable graph here!

Math: A file folder game that teaches number order from 1-50.  Check out the Carson Dellosa File Folder Books! 

Literacy: Mini Books are a great way for children to become independent in their reading.  Even though my 3 year old can't read yet, the rhymes in this book are familiar so he "follows along" with his finger and recites the poems.  This weeks book was "Rain Rain Go Away".  Scholastic has a great selection of Mini Books available!

Snack Time: A simple "Sunny Day" snack.  Made with baby carrots, a slice of orange and Craisins for the eyes (raisins or chocolate chips would also work - use what you have in the house!)

Groundhog Week

This week we were learning about Groundhog Day and shadows.

We started with an activity where my son matched shapes that were white to their black shadows. First, I put the shapes around on the basement floor while he hid his eyes and counted to 15. This was too easy for him. So once he matched all of the shapes to their shadows, he hid his eyes and counted to 15 again.  This time, I hid the black shadow shapes around the room and he had to search for the black shadow shapes. There were some that were too hard for him to find, so I used the words 'hot' and 'cold' to guide him to the next shadow shape.

For our music and movement part of this week, we used scarves that I bought from the dollar store. We found some lanterns and turned off the lights. Once he was ready, we started the music and we danced in front of the lanterns so that he could watch his shadow dancing on the wall.

This was our shadow painting. I cut out the silhouette of a groundhog, placed it on a black piece of paper and he used white paint and a sponge to dab around the groundhogs silhouette. When he lifted up the piece of paper with the groundhog on it, we were left with a really cool groundhog shadow.

 

Our cooking experience this week involved chocolate pudding, chocolate cookies and Teddy grahams.  First, we spooned out the chocolate pudding into the bowl and then we crumbled up chocolate chip cookies and sprinkled the crumbs on top. Finally, we placed four Teddy grahams in the bowl because our number of the week was four so this was yet another way to practice counting.  And just in case you're wondering, we used teddy grahams because they were the closest thing to groundhogs that we could find. And yes, they actually sell these at the dollar store.

Shadow puppets. I used Google images and found some basic shapes that I thought would make good story props. I then cut them out and taped the shapes to large popsicle sticks from the dollar store.  Using a lantern and a blank canvas wall, my son put on a great puppet show.

A science experiment. This was very educational and to the point. You can download a more general form below so that you can adapt the investigation to what you are working on.

Rainbow Rice

There are two parts to this post.  It's all about introducing in small steps with 3 & 4 year olds.  This was my end goal (of course found on Pinterest) - but how would I get there?

Step One: Get the rice from a Wholesale Club of some kind.  Cheapest and easiest.  Don't worry about quality, you won't be eating it, it's just to play with.

Step Two: Colour the rice.  We used baggies.  Put in a 3 or 4 cups of rice, added a few squirts of hand sanitizer and a few drops of food colouring.  Mix it all together.  Depending on how dark you want the rice, you will have to play with the amounts. Then we dumped it out to dry.  It doesn't take that long to dry.

Step Three: Let the children play with JUST the rice for a few days (or weeks).  The kids loved playing with the rice.  We gave them small shovels, strainers and we made some larger funnels out of construction paper.

Step Four: Add the letters.  We actually had to add more rice to the table because A. Lots was dropped on the ground in two weeks and B. We wanted the letters to be hidden and LITTLE harder to find.  I used the ABC Foam Puzzles that we have in the classroom and just put the puzzle base on the table beside the rice table.  My daughters Kindergarten class also had this in their classroom and she put the rice table right beside the whiteboard and used magnetic ABC's to match under the hand written ABC's on the whiteboard.  Two different possibilities!

Science Center

Looking for something to do on your next summer vacation?  Check out the local Science Center or Museum!  They are a great place to explore on rainy days (or really, really hot days) and they provide some of the best hands-on learning experiences that I have ever seen!  That was the point of this trip to the Science Center!  Learning and fun all in one place!

Magnets: Part One

This is a three part series about magnets.  This was part one, just introducing the magnet.  It started because we bought her a magnet bracelet when we were in Mexico and she was playing with it.  She asked me why the magnets were sticking together and I explained that some things are metal, which makes the magnets stick to them.  That was when we grabbed the magnet from the fridge and she went around the whole house trying to find what would stick to the magnet.  She found lots of neat things that I didn't even KNOW were magnetic - like the glass in some of the picture frames.  By the end, she had figured out that metal is USUALLY silver, but not always.  And a note for all of you out there - this activity does need parental supervision because the first things in every room that my daughter wanted to test were the electronics.  Magnets are not good for electronics so make sure your child understands this.  Other than that, have fun exploring!

There are many different kinds of magnets:

• Disk Magnets
• Ring Magnets
• Marble Magnets
• Wand Magnets
• Horseshoe Magnet
• Bar Magnet

Nature Preserves

Learning about and respecting nature is something that is very important to our family.  We took a trip as a family to a local nature perserve a couple of weeks ago.  With us, we took magnifying glasses and bug catchers to see what we could find in the long grass and "forests".  The kids had a great time following daddy along the grassy paths.  We used our magnifying glasses (bought from the Dollar Store) to look at the flowers beside the path, being sure not to touch or pick any of them.  We saw really neat things INSIDE the flowers.  It was a great learning experience for both of them.  Once we finished our hike we sat down and ate a picnic lunch together which was the best part of all!

Don't think that there are not nature preserves close to you.  Ask around.  Check the internet.  I'm not talking about National Parks, these are just areas of land that are meant for the public to hike, ski, walk and enjoy nature.  I didn't even know about this area and I have lived in the city for 11 years - in the area for 28!  So do your research - I bet you will find something close by!

Planting Seeds in a Grapefruit

I found this idea on Pinterest and I'm not sure if it will work or not.  The first part did, so that's great.  Now we just have to wait and see if the seeds grow!  So first we started with a grapefruit beacuse we didn't have lemons AND they are bigger so easier or the kids to handle. 

We went outside and the kids used the spoons to put some dirt into their grapefruit peel. 

 Next they added their seeds.  My daughter put WAY too many in so we just put some of hers into her brothers dirt.  Once the seeds were in, the kids used the spoons to add more dirt.  

Finally when the planting was done, we had to water our grapefruits.  My daughter turned on the tap, added some water and voila!  Her planting job was done.  

 But now we have the problem of watering these plants.  I really don't want to have to use the tap - I just see many things going wrong with that.  I want a simple way that the kids can do to.  Then my husband came up with the idea to use a spray bottle.  Not to hard, just a soft spray and you'll be good to go!  Have fun planting!