Teach Preschool » Science and Nature

Exploring what will float or sink in preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:21:20 +0000

We have been exploring transportation and of course, boats were on the list. I didn’t have any toy boats but no worries – we discovered that there are other materials that can float across the water…

The children used Styrofoam trays for their “boats”. Our “river” was quite congested at times with all the boating traffic…

Before adding our Styrofoam boats, we talked about what might float and what might sink in the water. I set out some of our “math tokens” for the children to test in the water…

Oh and in case you are wondering what the white stuff is floating around in the water – that is “snow” that we had leftover in the tub from our snow globe sensory. The kids didn’t want to wait for me to rinse all the snow out so we had snowy water….

We discovered that our plastic lids can float but our cars and the seashells sank to the bottom of the tub….

To help the cars float across the river, we discovered that the cars could be placed on top of our boats and they wouldn’t sink…

I’m glad I never stopped to pick up any toy boats because these Styrofoam trays actually made great boats and they were great for exploring what sinks and floats!

Fun and Simple!

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Exploring pumpkin seeds in the preschool classroom

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:00:08 +0000

Pumpkin seeds are a wonderful resource for sensory, math, art, and play. We cut open two pumpkins last week and I saved the pumpkin seeds from both of them…

The children discovered that the inside of a pumpkin is very slimy and the seeds are slippery and wet…

I separated all the pumpkin seeds out from the slimy pumpkin guts and then I colored the seeds (later in the day) with a tiny bit of vinegar and food color. I am not so sure I would have needed to add the vinegar but it worked fine for me. I was given the idea of coloring the pumpkin seeds by Erica on my Teach Preschool on Facebook page. You can see Erica’s pictures here.

I spread the seeds out on some paper and let them sit over night. The next day, they were still a little wet so I baked them at a very low temperature (200 degrees) for a few minutes (about 15) until they were nice and dry. Then I brought them back to school…

The children explored the seeds with their hands…

They used cups to scoop and pour pumpkin seeds…

Then we set out cut-up brown paper bags from the grocery store to use as our canvas for seed mosaics…

The children squeezed out glue on their paper and then added pumpkin seeds on top of the glue…

Every child made their own unique design with the pumpkin seeds…

For this activity, I told the children they would need to make puddles with the glue instead of just lines so that the pumpkin seeds would have plenty of glue to stick too…

The next time I share this activity with the children, I will set out heavier paper like cardboard because I discovered if you bend the paper after the seeds dry on the glue – the seeds tended to pop off the paper…

After making their mosaics, the children used the remaining seeds to make pumpkin seed exploration bottles…

Some of the children filled the bottles all the way to the top and others added orange construction paper to their bottle too…

And yes, we had pumpkins seeds all over the table and floor by the time we finished. Here are our finished pumpkin seed exploration bottles…

And here are some of our completed pumpkin seed mosaics…

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Planting and growing beans in our preschool window

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:00:38 +0000

With all the bean measuring and play going on, we also took the time to explore how beans grow…

This was a simple way to plant a bean. We started with cotton balls, water, plastic baggies, and a bowl of water…

Each child dipped their cotton balls into water and placed them in their baggie. They used enough cotton balls to fill all the way across the bottom of the baggie…

Next each child added some lima beans to their baggie. They wanted to add handfuls so we had to remind them that the beans needed space to grow so only add four or five…

Before introducing this activity to the children, I had previously soaked the lima beans overnight to speed up the growing process a bit…

Once the children finished adding their cotton balls and beans to their baggies, we then closed up the zipper and taped them to our window (make sure the baggies are sealed tight so they hold in the moisture). Now all we have to do is wait and see what happens. We will talk about the growth of the beans as they start to shoot out some sprouts…

Beans after one day in the window

Bean Plant after 8 days

I think we added too much water in a few of our plants – or we didn’t seal them tightly enough or perhaps we got too carried away with the number of beans in the bag. In any case, we had a few that didn’t grow. So we are going to try again next week for those who would like to do it again. The interesting thing is that we were able to talk about why some didn’t grow as well as why we think some did. Great science discussions based on natural happenings in our classroom!

This one didn't grow....Time for a Do-Over!!

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Experimenting at home for preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:39:31 +0000

Sometimes I will come across an idea that I really love but can’t necesarily decide how I want to implement it in the classroom….

I have seen this idea a couple of times now with the first time being at Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning.

I folded a paper towel into one long strip and then added a few colors of food color across the strip. Then I placed one end of the paper towel in a small jar of water and let it sit for a bit…

The water begins to soak up the paper towel and as it does, the food color begins to bleed across the paper towel…

I got a little impatient waiting for the water to drift across the paper towel so I stuck the other end of the paper towel in a second jar of water…

In the end, my paper towel got pretty soaked and all the colors ran together to make a pretty tie dyed look. I also ended up with a jar of yellow and a jar of blue water…

Then I took the paper towel out of the water and spread it out to dry…

So now that I have tried this at home, I will have a basic idea of what to expect should I decide to introduce the process to the children in the classroom…

There are several reasons to try something like this out before you take it to the classroom…

You get a sense of how long the process will take
You figure out what works and doesn’t work
You get a grasp on how your students can participate in the process
You can see if there is something more you would like to add to the process

By having experimented with the process on my own now – I will be more relaxed about introducing the process to the children and letting them experiment with the process. I also will want to make some plans for those colorful paper towels once they all dry. They are just too pretty to throw away!

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Exploring spring sensory play with preschoolers

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Thu, 05 May 2011 04:44:44 +0000

When I fill a sensory table, I usually have everything already in it that I think the children would like to play with but today, I just set out set out different items for Tristan to choose from…

I set out a basket of rocks, some colorful green rice, a pile of plastic bugs, paint brushes, plastic laundry lids (for cups), and a set of scales…

Tristan poured the rice in the sensory table first…

Then Tristan chose one bug from the pile and some paint brushes to add to the table….

For the longest time, Tristan simply covered the bug up completely with rice then used the paint brush to brush the rice off of the bug….

When Tristan wasn’t covering up the bug he just sat and ran the rice through his fingers or sprinkled the rice around the bug…

Sensory play can be a very relaxing or soothing experience if you have the right combinations of items available. I think rice is very soothing to run your fingers through.

After Tristan played a bit, he got tired of standing and asked if he could go get a chair. I suggested we just place the sensory table (bin) on the floor and Tristan was happy with this idea…

Later, Tristan decided to add the rocks, one laundry cup, and the scales to the sensory table too…

Tristan’s play graduated naturally from focusing on the feel and texture of the rice, to exploring the bugs, to exploring the rocks and scales. In all, I think Tristan played for about an hour while I worked on preparing my boxes for Friday’s post. I know it looks like I just stood there taking photos the whole time, but because Tristan’s play was so deliberate and he stayed there so long, I was able to go back and forth during that time and get photos along the way…

Other links for sensory..

Colorful Rice you can make

Simple Sensory Table

The value of scooping and pouring..

Rocks and a Scale from Brick by Brick

And check out this sensory post I wrote

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