pouring and learning about volume

 

ice play

We dumped a large bag of ice into our sensory bin, then added a couple of cups of liquid watercolor with eye droppers. This entertained the kiddos for almost an hour!

sometimes all you need is suds

We had a hot week at school and weirdly enough, the kiddos just weren't into the water table. That all changed with the addition of a few squirts of liquid soap. Not only did they keep cool, they (and the toys) got squeaky clean!

spring themed water transfer

Here is another activity center we explored during our week of Over in the Meadow. Silicone birdie trays were set out in our small sized baking pans along with a glass jar of tinted water and an eyedropper. The children worked on water transfer using the eye droppers and then...after a fashion some pouring happened. It was interesting to observe how they reacted when they attempted to pour the water from the trays back into the jars. We have happy colored sponges at the sink that we use for clean up and the children, all on their own used those sponges to wipe up the water that went all over the table. Some decided to use their own hand towels for clean up and even after they spilled they tried it again and again. We even had one industrious young one that was really excited to transfer the water back into the jar from the birdie tray using the eye dropper. How's that for focus?

ice and watercolors

 For our week of The Mitten, I added ice to one of our water bins. I made the ice the night before using small plastic bowls and storage containers. I plopped it into our water bin, added a palette of caked watercolors, a dash or two of glitter, and paintbrushes.

 There were also mittens available if the children wanted to pick up the ice with mittens or not. The paintbrushes, however, were most popular.

 This young lady spent most of the day painting the ice. There were a lot of comments about the water changing color, mixing new colors, and feeling the water to see if it was still "Icy, Icy, Cold!"

Thank goodness I brought extra ice to the classroom! I really loved the dialogue that was happening between the children as they visited the table. My co-worker who shares the room with me on alternate days, added water to balloons and then had the children add color before freezing them. I did not get photos but they were really gorgeous and the children loved exploring their sculptures. I'm going to have to try that as well...perhaps when the weather warms up!

doing what a raccoon does...

Well...sort of. The school I teach at is a both play and literature based. We feature a book a week and build our lesson plans around the various themes within. The children I teach of young threes and our first book was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. We learned about the different habits and traits of raccoons, one of which is the washing of their food. To add a tactile experience to the learning, I created a fruit washing bin.
 

 The children loved this activity and spent much of their free exploration time washing away. A few weeks later when I dropped my apple on the floor and headed over to the sink to wash it, on of my kiddos piped up "You wash it just like a raccoon"!