Summer Science 2- Water!

Water is fun and filled with science lessons!

Who doesn't love to splash in the water when it's warm outside?  Little kids especially love it (splashing particularly)  It's a good idea to get your little one used to water early so they aren't too apprehensive when they're older.  The more comfortable they are in the water the more safe they are, as long as you teach them water safety and practice it.  Swim lessons, pool and lake excursions, boating, sprinklers and playing in the rain are all great things to do but make it a learning experience by talking about water scientifically.  

You can talk about buoyancy, density, plants & animals that live in water, viscosity, disbursement, water cycle, every living thing needs water to grow, weather...

  

Will my art stay here?  The chalk acts differently when its wet...why?

Can I still mix colors?

Water currents/flow rates.  Why is there a river in our yard?

Why does the water fly when I just into it?

 

   

Why does the canoe float/rock?  Why are there ripples?

How does the paddle work?  How does my life vest work?

Why is the water cloudy?  

Which container fills the quickest? Which holds the most water?

Does it fill more slowly?  Why do my clothes get heavy when their wet?

 

Why are there waves? Why does the tide come in and out?

Why doesn't the water stay in the hole I dug?

Why are the clouds dark?  How does it rain?

Where does the rain go?  Why does it rain sometimes and snow others?

There are many opportunities to embellish everyday activities and experiences with learning.  Take them.

Summer Science 1- Exploring the Outdoors

Get outside and learn something!

To start with for summer science we gardened a bunch!  You can get (especially at the end of the season) little kid sized gardening tools, gloves, etc. that make them feel like they're being productive in the garden too or you can let them use your spare tools (or, especially great, just let them did with their hands!  Hg wants to use the tools just like me and I got tired of sharing with her so I just got her a set of her own).

 

Also, HIKING and exploring nature.  I've nannied for a few families and come across kids at age 7 that don't know what hiking is.  There are a myriad of places to explore nature and you don't have to just drive out into a wooded area.  A gathering of trees adjacent to a park, a small stream, an area lake, a nature center, an area farm/zoo.  The point is to involve kids in the natural world around them so that they gain an appreciation for plants and animals.  I teach about agriculture at this age; how plants and animals grown and where our food comes from.  Tell children about our ecosystem and the importance of keeping nature pollution free, about endangered animals and why we recycle.  But words, on this subject as well as others, aren't enough.  Kids love the outdoors so let them go out and do things and through this they'll gain an appreciation and respect for it.  Supplement what they're experiencing by explaining what they're seeing and why it's important/interesting.

 

Grasshopper in the front yard                       Hiking 

  

Feeding goats                         Wild Turtle

Activity Ideas:

Get a magnifying glass and look at things close up

Get a net/other bug catching devise and "hunt"

I.D. flowers & trees

I.D. animal tracks

Get some binoculars and bird watch

Do a scavenger hunt based on things that begin with.... or the color....

How many ..... (objects, orange things, birds, square shapes) can you find?

Gather leaves, sticks, etc to make art with

Draw in the dirt, play in the mud

Climb trees

Follow the leader

Make a map/follow a map

Clay dug up from the yard + leaves, rocks and sticks = kitty cats

If you need help finding places to go local conservation departments are great starts!  

Here are some Kansas City area places that are superb:

KC Zoo (Kansas City, Swope Park)

Lakeside Nature Center (KC, by Swope Park)

Burr Oak Woods Nature Center (Blue Springs)

Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead (Overland Park)

Anita B. Gorman Discovery Center (Plaza)

George Owens Nature Park (Independence)

Overland Park Arboretum

Loose Park (Plaza)

Powell Gardens (Kingsville, MO)

Faulkner's Ranch (Raytown, MO)

End of Year/Summer Busyness

So.. the end of the year really kept me busy and then it got even more intense when I immediately started a new (summer) job at Science City (our science center in KC) teaching technology in their summer camp.  The week of the 4th is a reprieve as I have the whole week off and I will finish up all of the half posts I have waiting to be published.  If you are interested in what's going on with me/Science City this summer check out their "ScienceCity SummerCamp" Facebook page or my blog for what I'm doing in technology class here: http://teachingkidstomake.blogspot.com/.


By the way.....Have you heard of Maker Faire Kansas City?

Look into it here:   http://www.makerfairekc.com/
I'll be there with a wearable technology booth!  Come and see the most amazing science and technology things going on in the KC area!

The Arctic

Wrapping up Winter we recently studied the Arctic.  

Here are some of the activities, projects and works we did:  

 

Winter exploration work on the wall with winter images.

Spooning/Scooping "snowballs".

Two works that are always present in my bi-weekly topics (animal habitats) are the felt story board with felt animals from the appropriate biome and the biome table which houses a mock habitat (3d or pictorial  sometimes with real plants, dirt, sand, water, etc.) and small plastic animals which the child can interact with. This habitat is blue foam for a lake and a water hole (the killer whale is on top of it here) and a combination of batting and cotton balls all hot glued onto on old, stained art tray.

Arctic Habitat and animals.

And even though I could not have a frozen arctic tundra for the little animals to live on I wanted to bring in some snow and ice from outside for the students to interact with.  We talked about the arctic people and animals and then got to play with snow, the whole time I talked about how it is cold and wet and what the people and animals of the arctic adapt to this.

Our hallway art for the unit:

Aurora Borealis with igloo and penguins (we talked about both the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis)-  water colored sky glued onto white paper.  Then we colored the penguins and glued them and the igloos onto the snowy white ground.  Polar bear paintings- we started with BLUE polar bears....polar bears are NOT BLUE.  So we HAD to paint them WHITE.  This was a really fun and goofy art project.

That about wraps it up, next up is grasslands and Springtime (although as I look out the window this day after Spring officially began it is snowing...).

Happy Snow

We are quite happy with the two snow days this week.  Here's my Montessori toddler playing with a dustpan and broom in the snow:

  

                                                                        (snow angel)

I hope all of you are staying warm and safe in the winter weather!

Montessori in the News (Kind of)

This past week Montessori got attention, but only to those who know about Montessori.  The president visited a school in Decatur,Georgia as part of his plan to expand the nation's preschool programs.  Though, College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center does not project itself as a Montessori school it clearly contains Montessori materials.  Here's to president Obama seeing and interacting with Montessori materials! (Makes me want to invite him to my school):

These children, along with president Obama, are working with the pink tower and the broad stair.  These materials belong to a family of Montessori materials called sensorial materials.  Sensorial materials are used to help the child concentrate on and refine his sensory skills so that he can make classifications within his environment.  The materials were designed to isolate the one quality that the child is to focus on.

Pictured above are the broad stair and pink tower in their standard configurations, once the child has mastered this he is allowed to expand upon these configurations with guides that the teacher provides, eventually combining both works, and then designing configurations of his own.

 

 

Toddlers can easily work with a half set of the pink tower and broad stair, i.e. every other one, five total.  They can also do extensions and combinations with guides.

Her first solo pink tower completion.

 

 

I usually let them/have them work together for the combination extensions where the pink tower and broad stair are used together.  There are a lot of materials involved and the toddler brain has a tendency to overload and shut down when things are too many in number and overwhelming   Also, it lets them learn how to share and collaborate towards a common goal.  All Montessori toddler programs should include these fundamental sensorial materials in their curriculum!

Yoga

 Yoga with toddlers!

So I know that doing yoga with your toddler is not a new idea by any means...but it is valuable even if you're not really into yoga.  I was having so much fun doing yoga with my daughter the other day, and was so impressed by some of her poses that I felt the need to write about it.

Kids love Yoga because it lets them be goofy and physical.  Also, often they're better than you are at many of the poses (which they get a kick out of).  It's exercise which is great and you can do some silly bonding.

 

These flash cards are pretty great because it gives us the opportunity to do yoga and talk about abc's/phonics. They're "The ABCs of Yoga for Kids Learning Cards" by Teresa Anne Power,(link to amazon.com if you're interested).  I focus on the letter of the week both at home and in my classroom with the yoga flashcards.  In my classroom I laminate color copies of the cards and put them in a basket on the shelf along with a pint-sized yoga mat.  The children get the work out and practice their yoga.  With older children they can take off their shoes while doing this (an extra special addition).

 But you don't have to limit yourself to yoga to combine physical activities with learning.  You can roll a ball or throw a ball back and forth.  While doing so you can count (I've found that kindergarten and older kids LOVE playing catch and counting up to 100+ each time the ball is caught). You can also say the ABC's with each letter with each roll or, for older kids an object, food, animal, etc for each letter (Alligator, Baboon, Cat...) in the order of the alphabet.  These activities are nice because you can do them indoors and still get some large muscle/exercise in.  Remember dancing! Dancing while holding, lifting, etc. your child is great exercize for you too.  Try to get them exercise during the Winter months when they're unable to go outside because of weather.