Our first week of Weather & Changing Seasons was about all kinds of weather. Learning about different types of weather allows children to look outside of themselves and investigate the world around them with their peers.
All Kinds of Weather
Sun
Sunny Shapes: This tabletop math activity uses linking shapes and a shape design mat. Mother Goose Time sends the best manipulatives with their curriculum. They can be used for matching, creating patterns, and games like this one.
After rolling the Pocket Cube the child finds the matching colored link. The game continues until all the shapes on the mat are filled. If the child rolls a cloud, he doesn’t take a link.
Sun and Moon: Our creative art for the day was a Sun and Moon Make & Play project. One side of the paper plate is a sun and the back is black with glitter craters for the moon. When we see the moon, we can’t see the sun. It’s a great learning project!
Wind
Fan Experiment: Wind is air that can move things. We can’t see it but we can feel it. The fan experiment allows children to explore technology. We used scarves to play with the wind.
It’s fun to feel the wind from the fan and hold up scarves and watch them blow when we let them go!
Wind Art: We used “wind” or air blown through straws to blow sequins on paint mixed with glue.
We played outside with rainbow ribbons in the wind too.
Ordering Kites: our small group math activity: sorting counting bears by size – small, medium and large. The medium and large bears are quite similar in size so it was a little tricky. Some of the toddlers matched the colors of the bears to the colors on the kites, which worked too.
Clouds
Heavy Clouds: We learned about clouds through a STEAM station. I love how simple this experiment is. Fill a cup with water, spray shaving cream on top and then use a pipette to drop colored water onto the “cloud”. The colored water drips down like rain. The kids loved that they could do it on their own.
Counting Clouds: rolling the Pocket Cube and counting out cotton balls to put on the sky scene.
Cloudy Art: Using pipettes, white and blue paint, we made cloud art.
Snow
Ice Cube Coloring: we used frozen watercolor paints to paint our letter Cc page. C is for cat, cloud, cube, and cold.
Writing letter C in My Little Journals:
Snow Dough: cornstarch, baking soda, oil, and water. It wasn’t a super successful recipe but it was a pleasant texture and kids always love messy!
Coffee Filter Snowflakes: painted with pipettes and thinned paint.
Rainbows
Rainbow Bears: sorting bears by color or rolling the Pocket Cube and finding the same color bear and putting it on the rainbow mat.
Rainbow Bracelet Beading: beading on pipe cleaners.
Rainbow Sculptures: sculptures made with paper strips and paper plates
Rainbow CDs: I hung CDs on our mobile over the light table to make a rainbow light center. Our Spacesaver light table is from Lakeshore Learning.
A video shows it better:
This was a great STEAM station for the kids to explore light, colors, and rainbows with flashlights and colored toys on the light table.
What a great week learning about all kinds of weather!
Becky
Tuesday 17th of October 2017
Love it! So many ideas!