painting with tea

As a part of our tea study we put away the paints and painted with bags of tea instead. The colors were so pretty and the room smelled quite fruity. The children experienced a number of senses as they painted with the bags.

I get to class up to an hour before the kiddos arrived so was able to heat up some water in the microwave warm enough to help the tea develop but cool enough that the bags would be cool to touch when the kiddos arrived.  You can do this with your kiddos at home as a science experiment by placing small containers of water containing a tea bag each outside in the sun. The children could make predictions on how long the tea would take to turn the water a happy color, what color each tea would turn the water, and what the breed tea would smell like. We used single-serve applesauce containers for our tea (the kiddos love saving their containers for our room).

I covered a table with white paper and popped the tea paint within reach on top. I am an avid tea drinker and friends send me tea so did not spend a penny but if you are looking to purchase tea for such a project basic black and green tea are different enough in color and scent to engage your kiddos (especially if you pick up a blend such as jasmine or pumpkin spice chai) and are easy enough to find at your grocery or dollar store. The red tea up above is a rooibos from Mighty Leaf. I really like Mighty Leaf as the fabric bags make it easy to see all the pretty inside. If you find you are without tea, to save some moolah I recommend a variety pack such as this (I am not affiliated with the company, I just really like their tea)!

What you need:
*2-4 varieties of tea in bags
*water for brewing
*heat or the sun to help brew the tea
*time (about an hour) to let the warm/hot tea cool
*small clear containers such as custard cups or clean single-use applesauce cups
*white paper, the thicker the better

flowering tea observation {in the classroom}

Have you ever brewed the loveliness that is flowering tea? As a part of our tea investigation I brought in a ball of flowering jasmine maidens from Harney & Sons. To brew flowering tea for drinking you should have a clear pot and hot water. We were not going to drink the tea (can you imagine three year olds hopped up on caffeine?) so I used my pretty mini pot and then transferred the flowering ball into a large ball jar.

The tea brews just like a regular tea bag but is much prettier. To keep the jar of tea from getting cloudy with green tea, after the ball opened up I discarded the tea into a mug for myself and refilled the jar with cooler water. This was repeated throughout the day so that the kiddos could observe and comment on the pretty jar of tea.

Harney and Sons flowering tea is not really priced to waste but you can now flowering tea at your local grocery store or online. Up above is my nifty single serve tea pot which we used for the initial brewing. The children asked a lot of questions and marveled at the idea that a person sewed the leaves together so that when we brew it the leaves would open up and bloom. Many of the children believed that the tea was a flower that was picked just like that. Some decided it was fairy tea. They also loved the scent of the tea, jasmine tea does smell quite pretty. We saved our flowering tea for the next class to view, it lasted two days before becoming hyper-bogged down with the water. Stay tuned for more tea investigation!

making smoothies in the classroom

One of our activities for our week of The Very Hungry Caterpillar was to make fruit smoothies. The children were very excited at the idea and talked a lot about when we were going to do it.

On smoothie day, each kiddo brought a piece/type of fruit to class. I notified parents ahead of time and asked them to not bring bananas as I worried that each kiddo would bring a banana, I would supply those.  I also brought along a few other types of fruit that I thought would be fun to explore. We did not stick with the fruit from the book as I wanted the children to decide which fruit they brought to class. We had strawberries, blackberries, apples, peaches, plums, oranges, apricots, and kiwis. A cornucopia! Thank goodness we have no fruit allergies in this class!  The children were very excited to get started as they were going to cut their own fruit with real  (butter) knives! Each piece of fruit was introduced and we talked about the visual characteristics. I talk a lot about us being detectives of the world and how we use our five senses to seek out clues. We used our eyes to give us visual clues to determine what kind of fruit we had. We see an orange is round and of course orange. We then use our nose to smell the fruit before we cut it, we use our hands to touch and then we use our mouth to taste, etc. Some of the fruit was new to the children and we would guess what color the inside was and write down our predictions. There was a lot of excitement, vocabulary, community, etc.

I found this really awesome blender at Target for $15. It makes a 16oz drink and you can drink from the base if ya like. It is not a very loud blender but still loud enough to unsettle my sound sensitive student so before using it we talked about the sound a blender makes and she took some time to decide if she wanted to be in the kitchen with ears covered our in the reasing corner with pillows piled over her, etc. We put in our fruit with a few ice cubes, a smidge of pineapple juice to help get things going and the children took turns blending away. It was thrilling! When the smoothie was deemed finished, the children took turns pouring their drink into their own cups.  Making a smaller smoothie is crucial as all that fruit in those little bellies...well...you know.

Here is this photo again showing the scale of our blender. I love it and the children were so serious when they were blending their smoothies. It was a delicious smoothie and made more than enough for our small group. If you have room in your class to store a small blender I would highly recommend it. Though, I do have to admit I take my blender home to store and use as I find it makes a much better smoothie than our large Oster. Cheers!

rainbow percussion play

Can you tell I like a rainbow? We made a classroom xylophone using a variety of coffee/frap bottles, liquid watercolor, and water. Our books were A Rainbow of My Own and The Listening Walk. We did this project for both books and again when the children wanted to. We talked a lot about order and sequencing as we arranged the bottles in and out of rainbow order and discussed the steps for making our xylophone. I talked to the children about sounds, vibrations, music, and percussion. There had been a lot of discussion about all of those things in our classroom during the week and creating our own xylophone tied it all together.

We began with glass bottles (not a bad excuse for drinking fancy bottled coffee drinks) that had just a little bit of liquid watercolor in them. One of the kiddos was really excited to see all of the colors of the rainbow. They had even made sure the bottles were in rainbow order before we began.

I introduced the funnel as a tool for pouring liquid into the bottles without spilling. The kiddos use funnels a lot in water play and sensory play. This was the first time they were using it as a kitchen tool and they were very excited!

The children took turns pouring water into the bottles. All of them oohed and aahed over the brightly colored water.

 We worked in a small group to give everyone a chance to pour and talk about what they were doing.

I was surprised and delighted that the children did not wish to pour equal amounts of water into the bottles. There was some ownership over who poured the water in each bottle so later as they played, they would refer to the red bottle as theirs or the blue bottle as his...etc.

Aren't they pretty all lined up? The next day when we did the project again, the children in the next group poured equal amounts of water into each bottle. They worked very carefully and eyeballed their amounts. One of the children had an a-ha moment and went off in search of a measuring cup. It was super cool.

They had so much fun playing their new classroom instrument. Variety of sound was magical to them. The second rainbow xylophone made with equal amounts was also just as fun to play. One of the children noticed the sounds were not that different and another a-ha moment happened when he told the other children they need to change the water.

See? So much music and fun. Here are two of the kiddos playing their Jazz music. We play a lot of jazz in the classroom though their favorite is rock n roll. I have a video to post also. I just need to figure out how to make the file smaller. Stay tuned!

investigating plants and flowers

This project and center came about when we were studying plants, flowers, and sequencing. You can see that our sunflowers had begun sprouting in their egg cartons. The children were really excited about that and it gave us an opportunity to talk about the parts of a plant. I had previously left the sprouts out so that my co-teachers could help me keep and eye out and water them when I was not there. By co-teachers, I mean we share a room. There are three of us in the room and three separate classes. Two of our classes run with the same themes and book titles while the third is a camp class of sorts and is always full of fun happenings. Our Friday teacher set this up on our science table thinking we would like to do this with our kiddos as well and she was totally right. Since it was also our week of A Rainbow of My Own, I swapped out the trays or rainbow colors and added our polka tray in the center to hold the parts. I brought in flowers from my garden at home and culled from the leftover plants we had from the previous week and set them out to for the kiddos to explore.

We talked about the parts of the plants and went through the various names as each child selected something from the polka dot tray. On our tray, was an assortment of the renegade bean plants that sprout when we "accidentally" leave black beans in the sand box after sensory play. One of the kiddos totally made the connection and insisted on going outside to harvest the remaining plants. Of course this led to others wanting to plant more so out came the tub of black beans as the children carefully planted them in our sandbox.

investigating vinegar and baking soda

Back when we did our bubble print trucks, we found we had a lot of leftover watercolor paint in our happy rainbow bowls. I added a hefty dose of vinegar to each cup then gave the kiddos access to baking soda. Minds were blown! There was dumping, scooping, eye-droppering, and of course pouring. It was a spectacular mess and the children loved every minute of it. I am happy that I managed to cover the table top with butcher paper. Our junky clean up towel mopped up the floor. The children went home with fingers tinted in all sorts of colors. Absolutely spectacular!

snails in the classroom

What more can I say? Snails in the classroom, one of my favorite things and now one of my classroom's favorite things. The Sunday morning before our week of snails, I armed myself with a plastic resealable bag and stepped out into the yard a few minutes after the sprinklers turned off. Snails like moisture and I had to get to them quickly before the mister did them in as they are ferocious eaters and chomp on most everything in the garden. Snails will keep in a container in your fridge for about a week. Add a leaf or two of lettuce or cabbage and seal it up and they are good to go. We kept misting bottles (to keep our mollusky friends comfortable) at the science table along with magnifying glasses and a small mirror. The children enjoyed watching the snails wake up from the refrigerated slumber and counting them throughout the day to see if they were all there (we had one adventurous fella who often strayed away). The children learned about the parts of the snail and habitats. At the end of the day, we returned the snails to their rinsed out bag and gently placed them back in the refrigerator. Don't forget to rinse out the bag so that the poor things will not have to wallow in their own poop. Also, snail poop is hysterical to children. Hysterical! We kept our friends for a week and liberated them to our play yard in the canopy of our enormous succulents.

We also read a lot of books about and starring snails:

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman
Snaily Snail by Chris Raschka
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson
Are You a Snail? by Judy Allen
Snail Where are You? by Tomi Ungerer
Slow Snail by Mary Murphy
Oscar and the Snail by Geoff Waring

sprouting sunflower seeds: part 2

We began our sprouting jars at the end of our week with the plan that we would be able to plant out our seeds the following week. I took the wee jars home over the weekend and when I brought them back on Monday, sure enough, they were ready to plant out!

*potting soil
*small scoops
*half an egg carton per child
*rimmed trays to work on
*spray bottles/misters

Step 1: Before we began, I opened  out our classroom jar and spread out the damp seeds onto a tray. I then sat down with the children and discussed what had happened to our seeds over the weekend and invited the children to investigate.We then compared fresh seeds to our sprouted seeds and listed how they were different on a large sheet of paper.

Step 2: When the children were ready they came over to the planting center and retrieved their jar. The first thing they did was scoop potting soil into their egg carton.

Step 3: Once their cartons were full of soil, they removed the rim and mesh from their jars and either shook or scooped their seeds out and spread them along the top of the potting soil. Many of the children chose to use their hands for this part.

Step 4. When planting sprouted seeds you do not need to cover them in soil. They can rest lightly on top of the soil as their roots are already developed. You do however need the soil to be damp so pass out those spray bottles and let the kiddos go to town!

Step 5. Once their seeds and soil are full saturated, set in a semi sunny place and keep an eye on them so that the soil does not dry out. The children would revisit their seeds throughout the day and spray them with glee. At the end of the day we would pour water into the trays to keep the cartons wet overnight.

Step 6. Sunflower sprouts appear to grow crazy fast! Once they reach about two inches high, they can be planted outside. If you wait too long they will be a bit root bound in the cartons but that is okay as the carton can be planted directly into the ground. While the children chose their perfect spot and dug their perfect holes, the adults in the classroom gently separated the cups in the carton and helped the children plant out their seeds in our play yard. I do not have any photos of this part and sadly we lost most of our sprouts to a crazy record breaking heat wave but we do have three flowers growing in the yard. Before the heat wave came, the children would check the status of their flowers every day. Once the sprouts began failing do to heat and some over watering by our young enthusiastic gardeners we brought that information into the discussion and now the children as about the temperature and ask which plants are okay or not okay. Awesome learning all around!

sprouting sunflower seeds: part 1

 Back in the fall we spent a week investigating all things sunflowers, in March, we sprouted our own seeds to plant in our play yard. The flowers are growing taller everyday but have been so very slow to bloom but that's okay, the children love watering them and talk often of the time they sprouted their seeds. Sunflowers are awesome an awesome bloom. They produce edible seeds and their tiny sprouts are also edible. We set up an area for the children to create their sprouting jars and got to work.

*sunflower seeds (organic optional)

*small jars such as jelly or baby food

*tulle or mesh from a citrus bag or bath scrubbie

*rubber bands or canning jar rings

*scissors

*small scoops or spoons

*small pitcher of water

*containers for seeds

Step 1. Pass out a small jar for each child. We used 4oz jelly jars with the lid removed and rings set aside. 

Step 2. Have children scoop 1-2 small scoops of seeds into their jar. If you wish for the children to enjoy and sample the sprouts, use organic seeds, otherwise you can use black oiled sunflower seeds used for bird feed which can be found for in 5 pound bags for under $10.

Step 3. Have children pour water into their jars as full as they can. 

Step 4. Place a small square of netting, tulle, or mesh over the top of the jar and add rim or rubber band to hold the netting in place. 

Step 5. Place in a cool dark area of the room and replace water every six to eight hours. We placed our jars onto a rimmed tray so that I could take home and babysit. After the first day, you will pour out the water but continue to rinse every six to eight hours. Seeds should produce a tiny little root/tail in about two to three days. The rinsing is especially important if you are going to be sampling the sprouts/micro greens as the rinsing will help keep anything else growing on your greens.

If you are interested in sprouting seeds for food or fun, check out this nifty info page from The Sprout People. I have found their website to be very helpful and informative.

investigating cornstarch and shaving cream

One box of cornstarch, 1 can of shaving cream. Add some eyedroppers and liquid watercolor and a small spray bottle or two and watch those little minds at work. We used cookie sheets as work stations. Four sheets for four kiddos. They could go as long as they wanted or they did not have to investigate at all.

fower petal art

This project came from one of my co-teachers and the children really loved it. The results are really pretty even if they do fade over the months. This is not really a keep but still great work for fine motor and discussing design elements with children. My co-teacher used cardboard cake rounds with the centers cut out. I repurposed cereal boxes. We had originally covered the children's art with another layer of clear contact paper but the moisture trapped inside quickly aided the flowers in molding and it was not pretty so you only need one layer of contact paper.

*clear contact paper
*cut cardboard frames from old boxes, cereal boxes, or cake rounds
*assorted flower petals and leaves (we used roses and other edibles)
*scissors

Step 1. Assemble frames. Cut a square or rectangle of cardboard and carefully cut out the center.

Step 2. Cut a sheet of clear contact paper slightly larger than your frame, attach sticky-side up with the blank side of the cardboard facing forward/top. Trim excess contact paper.

Step 3. Set out flower petals for the children to adhere to their sticky frames. Young children end ot explore by putting things in their mouths, for this reason, it might be best to stick with edible flowers such as roses, nasturtiums, geraniums, and flowering herbs. Go for what is in your garden or better yet, have the children bring in flowers and plants to share. They can dismantle/dissect them a day or two before this project. Store petals and leaves in a bag in the refrigerator.

Step 4. Hang in a window so that the light shines through. Have fun!

bubble print trucks

 

We were reading Truck by Donald Crews and I wanted some sort of truck art/craft. We had already painted with cars both on paper and on tinfoil so I thought pulling our our rainbow bowls and adding liquid watercolor, soap, and water to the mix would be fun.We used bendy straws to create our bubbles and yes, we did have a young'un suck the soap right up but do you know what? He spit it out and looked at me with his lips all blue and I said "Ah, you got soap in your mouth." He nodded and I asked if he remembered how to blow bubbles using our bubble wand. After he nodded I explained again that we were going to blow through the straws to push air into our mixture. The air would help create bubbles and that once we got a nice hill of bubbles we would plop our paper on top to create a print. He was unsure and dubious of it it so I say with him and demonstrated how you can feel the air come out of the bottom of the straw. After a few tries he tried it again and was SO EXCITED to create bubbles! I know some people prefer to poke a hole in the straw to prevent kiddos from drinking up soap but I find once they do they work really hard and not doing it again. I use a gentle soap from J.R, Watkins and our liquid watercolor is non-toxic. I also make sure to use clean containers for those kiddos that just have to taste it. Here's what you need:

*small containers

*about a half cup of water per container

*hefty squirt of liquid watercolor (you can also use powdered tempera)

*squirt or two of liquid dish soap

*straw per kiddo

*large white paper cut into the shape of a truck

*plastic/vinyl tablecloth optional (it gets messy)

I used our small rainbow cups so offered up six different colors in rainbow order. There was a lot of dialogue and negotiation between the kiddos to see who would work at which bowl first.

Step 1. Set out bowls with water, soap, and watercolor

Step 2. Hand kiddos straws and explain that you will be BLOWING air through the straw not sucking up/drinking the bubble solution. If you need to demo do so. Have the kiddos blow into the straws while placing hteir pother hand underneath. Ask what they feel.

Step 3. Place a truck shape near each kiddo or set aside and wait for when they are ready. I drew my trucks freehand but you may be able to find templates online. You can use rectangular paper or any shape you like. We did trucks because we were on week two of a transportation unit.

Step 4. Have kiddos blow their bubbles. Before it gets too crazy make sure they know that first they will make their prints then they can get all wacky with blowing the biggest bubble mountains ever.

Step 5. When the children are ready, hand them their truck shape and tell them to place it over their bubble mountain. Many will be thrilled with the results and continue over and over again. Some not so much but that's okay too.

Hang trucks to dry for display or take home. This bubble explorations gets super messy so do not do this on carpet. You may even wish to do this outside. Once the kiddos were finished with their prints, I was loathe to waste the watercolor in the bowls so turned the activity into another fun project....photos soon!

oh, the fun that we had: pink ink

Another fun project from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish was making Pink Ink (it's what the Yink drinks).  We do a lot of recipes in the classroom, both real and made-up (concoction making and experimenting). Recipe following falls right in line with early math skills. Children are learning sequencing along with cause and effect (what happens when we add something, what happens when we leave something out). Cooking and recipe following in the classroom is always exciting. The children also learn new vocabulary words and further develop all those motor skills that are so important to coordination, balance, and learning.

 

For our Pink Ink recipe I wanted to do something easy that mostly focused on following steps in order. My first thought was strawberry milk but that was just so pink. Then I thought of making a french soda without the fizz and off I went in search of juice. I knew we were going to use whipped cream and sprinkles so I went with a no-sugar added option. The problem with that is the more natural the juice the less pretty it is (not really a problem but it was funny when the pink ink was hardly pink).

 

The set up included clear cups on plates and a happy curly straw. The first step was to pour some juice into their cup. Each child took a turn and poured as much or as little as they wished. We do a lot of pouring practice in class when we make cocoa (which is always a treat and I need to do a post on the cocoa fun) and the children know that sometimes a spill happens and that's okay, we just clean it up. They all know where the dishtowels for cleaning up are which makes it easy and they own it.

After juice came milk  then whipped cream (we did not get a chance to make our own cream so I sprayed some on top for them).

 

After the cream came the sprinkles (which thankfully had soooo much color in them the drink did indeed turn pink after much stirring had happened) then the straw.

 

 

The children oohed and aaahed over their concoctions and went about investigating them as they would any set of science supplies I set out for them. I asked them to use their senses and tell me what they observed. There was a lot of enthusiastic sniffing and poking and tasting. Oh so much fun!

sometimes flowers need to be studied

We were walking back from music to our classroom when one of the children spied a fallen camellia in his path. He immediately stopped, exclaimed, then picked it up. He held it out to me and I explained that he was holding a flower called a camellia. At that point the other children had to find their own and the hunt was on. We talked about only picking up the flowers that had already fallen and to not pick them from the bushes as there were plenty of fallen blooms.

The children were excited to explore their flowers in the classroom so instead of the planned activity and discussion, trays and magnifying glasses were pulled out. It was science time!

 The children touched their flowers, sniffed them, and peered at them closely through a magnifying glass. I showed them the parts of the flower, naming each one for them. Some of the children wanted to pull the petals off of their flowers and I encouraged them to explore.

This is Ellie's flower. It is red. She found it from the tree outside, at school. It is pretty.

This is Quincy's flower, it is grey. It has stripes. It has white on the inside.

I asked the children if they wished to create a scientific label for the flowers. I pulled down the typewriter and typed out their dictation. Later some of the petals made their way into our play dough while others were put in glass jars with water for observation. I love it when the day takes you somewhere else.

the nature and science table

The preschool class I teach is fairly new to the school I teach in. Our children are three-going-on-four, many of them are new threes and school is a new experience for them. Along with the usual preschool suspects of creamy tempera paint, waxy crayons, and colorful blocks, we like to bring in new objects from home and nature to share with the children.

Our nature table began as a mish-mash of wooden boxes from the thrift store, sea-shells scavenged from our shelves, and rocks selected from our gardens. I purchased the magnifying glasses from a dollar store hoping their sturdiness would withstand the wild abandon of a three or four-year old at play. So far...so good.

As the children move through the various classes held in our room over the course of a week, we teachers gather to brainstorm on new ways to engage the children and to talk about what their interests are. The room is shared between myself, and two other teachers, none of us actually working with the other so our small moments are greedily grabbed and gabbed at whenever possible.

While it would be lovely to be able to all work together all the time, I am always thrilled when I discover something new in the classroom along with the children. The one area that changes the most is our nature and science table.

The rocks and shells are still there. New boxes are added...fall leaves both real and man-made are brought in...acorns make an appearance, new jewel-toned glass jewels spill into the bellies of the large shells that are scattered about along with seed pods pulled from our late summer gardens. It seems there is always something new yet familiar waiting to be explored. Even the children have begun to bring in precious rocks and stones or sticks and leaves.

I discovered the quite nifty laminate tiles at the hardware store sometime last year. They are about four inches square and I picked them up for a coaster project but I think they are quite happy hanging out on the table hosting the various objects the children delight in arranging. The natural colors of the laminate with the faux-woodgrain switch it up a bit. It's something small and budget-friendly (free even) that elevated our hodge-podge of seed pods to small works of art.