Science

Winter Ice

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December 19, 2018 by Stacy 1 Comment

One of our awesome days of Mother Goose Time lessons focusing on Sights and Sounds of winter was all about winter ice. Other topics we’ve covered this month are animal tracks in the snow and the sound of drums.

Winter Ice Activities: science, sensory, art preschool lessons Mother Goose Time Sights and Sounds of winter theme #MGTblogger #MotherGooseTime #SightsandSounds

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Wonder About Winter Ice

Our conversation started out with “What do you need to make ice?” With a mixed age group, there’s usually someone who knows the answer!

Outdoor sights and sounds of winter topic: ice activities. What do you need to make ice? Daily topic poster from Mother Goose Time #MotherGooseTime #MGTblogger #SightsandSounds

December Days

Our December days have gone so fast! We really tired to keep up with circle time, covering our calendar, weather and daily topics. The Sights and Sounds of Winter theme is so rich and full for celebrating winter and the holidays. We’ve really enjoyed it!

Along with winter ice, we’ve learned about other outdoor sights and sounds of winter like, animal tracks, owls, bells, and winter birds.

Wonder about Outdoor Sights and Sounds teacher guide Mother Goose Time ice, animal tracks, owls, winter birds #MGTblogger #MotherGooseTime #preschoolcurriculum

Five Little Icicles

We began our circle time with the 5 Little Icicles Community Challenge. It’s basically a fingerplay counting activity, but I like that it involves a connection with others instead of an individual activity. As it says in the teacher guide, this activity builds relationship skills by engaging in an interactive game with a peer and helping each other accomplish a goal.

It was really cute to see the younger ones pointing to each finger and counting. Something everyone could do or attempt!

Ice Fishing Science Experiment

We love doing science experiments! This one is called “ice fishing”.

Everyone can observe but it’s more fun, if everyone can try it themselves.

During the experiment, I focused on saying, first, then, and next. So simple, yet a necessary lesson that’s easy to include while speaking to children once we are aware!

First, we poured the water over the ice. Can we pull out a piece of ice with the string? Can we “catch” a piece of ice? No, we can not.

Next we tried laying the string in the water and then sprinkling salt on it.

We waited patiently. What will happen? How can we catch some ice?

Preschool winter ice activities: ice fishing science experiment for preschoolers involving ice freezing and melting #SightsandSounds #MotherGooseTime #MGTblogger

Then, we tried picking up the string and we caught some ice!

Ice cubes and yarn ice fishing science experiment for preschoolers involving ice freezing and melting #SightsandSounds #MotherGooseTime #MGTblogger

It’s really cool, but why does it work? How does the salt help us pick up the ice with the string?

Preschool science experiment Ice fishing science experiment for preschoolers involving ice freezing and melting #SightsandSounds #MotherGooseTime #MGTblogger

First D gives it a try and he catches some ice.

Then A gets a turn. She picks up some ice with the string too.

Want to know how it works? The salt sprinkled on the ice begins to melt the ice. Then it quickly freezes again, sticking to the string. We tried it over and over again. Super cool experiment!

Books About Winter and Ice

Two of the books we enjoyed about winter and ice are Winter is Here! and Icebergs, Ice Caps, and Glaciers.

Dripping Icicles Art

We have done this activity before and it’s always a hit. I no longer have a large easel so we make do, and make do very well, I’d say. I just put a block under everyone’s tray so their work surface is slightly tilted. Then when they squeeze the thinned out paint through the pipettes, it drips nicely.

The littlest ones can be successful too, with some assistance.

Lots of dripping icicles!

Pipettes are wonderful for developing fine motor skills, eye hand coordination and hand and finger strength.

It’s fun to watch the paint drip even if it’s makes the windows run…

Here’s how we displayed our winter houses.

Dripping icicles

They look so festive for winter and the holidays.

Ice Sensory Bin

This may be the best $1.29 I’ve ever spent – on a bag of ice for the sensory bin! Seriously, the ice was slow to melt and we got a lot of use out of it.

Mother Goose Time included this science and nature activity in the STEAM Stations suggestions for this week. The activity focuses on sound so it connects perfectly with the Sights and Sounds theme. Asking questions while the children play encourages them to think creatively and work to create sounds with the ice.

Science and Nature Ice sounds STEAM Station Ice sensory bin for winter ice preschool theme. #MotherGooseTime #MGTblogger #SightsandSounds #sensorybin

We did some of that, but they explored the ice effectively on their own.

Most of my sensory bins are simple, just adding a variety of tools and containers to the main filler. In this case, using baskets with openings allows water from the melted ice cubes to drain out.

Since ice is cold, we used spoons and tweezers to pick up the ice.

Ice cube trays are always awesome in sensory bins but it’s cool that we can put ice cubes in actual ice cube trays!

What a fun filled day of discovering sounds of nature, investigating freezing and melting and using our senses to learn about winter ice. Also, try our Fizzy Ice Sensory & Science bin.

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Creating Seed Mosaics

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May 26, 2018 by Stacy Leave a Comment

First, we explored soil, then seeds as part of our gardening theme. One of our seed activities was creating seed mosaics which turned out beautiful! I’ve been enjoying them all month on display in our room. Creating Seed Mosaics allowed the children to explore seeds and handle them to create a design of their own.

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Creating Seed Mosaics

Our seed mosaics required basic supplies Mother Goose Time included in the Growing Gardens box. Look at this beautiful inspiration photo that was included. Now, I will admit I had ideas of beautiful well-placed results like this, but in reality, toddlers and preschool results are much different. The idea of a mosaic and inspiration is what’s important. The inspiration photo creates interest, introduces a concept (mosaics in this case) and provides an idea, to begin with.

Toddler and preschool skills vary but we’re not looking for the next Picasso here. What is the purpose of this activity? It’s to explore seeds! That’s exactly what they did. We talked about the different colors an sizes of the seeds. Guessed which seeds produced flowers, grass or popcorn.

The rest is about the creative process and using fine motor skills to squeeze glue and place seeds.

There may be big pools of glue and a few seeds sprinkled.

Older ones are more likely to begin planning their art. We can guide that process a bit so children learn the concept of what we do first, second or third but sometimes I have to be careful with that because too many words, “rules” or steps and children lose interest. This 4-year-old, said, “I’m going to make my name” and he did. That was purely his idea and he was successful. He was satisfied and I thought it was fabulous. Was it anything like the inspiration photo? No, but that’s not the point.

Our youngest, 2 years old, perhaps had the most interesting result but that was because I helped her squeeze the glue. She usually can do it but her bottle was hard to squeeze that day. She held on to the bottle and I helped her squeeze and create a circular design on her paper. Then she sprinkled on seeds. So pretty!

Twine was provided to hang up the seed mosaics. I like the natural look.

All different but beautiful art.

A close up of the texture, shapes, sizes, and colors of seeds.

This is our seed mosaic display in our library area.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our Creating Seed Mosaics activity. Thank you for following along and sharing in our gardening with kids activities!

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Planting Seeds in Preschool

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May 26, 2018 by Stacy Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again to plant some seeds! Planting Seeds in Preschool is such a wonderful hands-on experience for children! I love that it doesn’t have to be a big production to be meaningful. Just a small bean seed or a little container for soil and grass seeds! Both of these offer quick and exciting results.

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Planting Seeds in Preschool

My group was so excited to do this little project. Everyone was visibly excited and engaged in this activity from Mother Goose Time – simple planting grass seeds in a small cup. It was over much too quickly so we also planted a larger pot of marigold seeds using seeds I had saved from our flowers last year. Most of the children are able to remember the orange flowers we had in our planter last year so this was a meaningful cycle for them to understand the seeds could be saved and planted again.

I set out two trays and worked with two children at a time to reduce the chaos and the mess! I’m not sure why we didn’t do this outdoors but it may have been rainy since we had many of those days this May…

They were anxious to get started and you could see their little eyes taking in all the supplies and their minds processing what to do first and next, which resulted in their hands quickly.

In an effort to slow down the process so it could be done appropriately and meaningfully, I asked them to identify the items we would be using.

Then other questions like, “What does a seed need to grow?” “What should we do first?”

“Is that enough soil?”

“How many seeds should we plant?”

Some used the spoons and some used their hands. It’s important to offer tools and be flexible. It all works!

This little one was frustrated with the time it was taking to squeeze the pipette and water her seeds so she picked up the jar and poured. Great!

The pipettes for watering slows down the process and prevents the flooding of the seeds plus works on the fine motor skills we need practice with.

We compared the grass seeds and marigold seeds. Marigold flower seeds are colorful like the blooms.

It didn’t take long to see tiny sprouts! It will take longer for the marigolds to grow but that will be fun to watch too. Every day we check to see if they need to be watered.

The grass grew quickly and soon needed to be cut. That’s the fun part!

For some reason, this one didn’t grow as much. He certainly had enough seed in it! Maybe this was the one that got dumped and the seeds ended up all mixed in? That’s part of the learning process in planting seeds in preschool. It’s on going learning through a little seed planted in soil that we can watch and observe for many days and weeks to see what happens.

He helped the younger ones who needed assistance cutting. We hope the grass grows again so we can cut it again!

Such a fun sensory and fine motor experience! Cut grass smells good.

Now we wait for the grass to grow long again.

Engage Families with a Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers

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February 17, 2018 by Stacy Leave a Comment

As I prepare for next month’s theme on space, I decided to create a Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers to work on at home with their parents. I’m always looking for ways to engage parents and this is a new activity they may enjoy together at home and even better that it directly relates to our theme.

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Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers

Observing the moon for a week and recording those observations is not “preschool homework”. What it is an opportunity for parents to participate in our curriculum and support the connection between home and school.

Learning together is a wonderful way for parents to connect with their children. It will only take a few minutes and yet, it opens up the opportunity for ongoing learning for the child. We want to support the parents in being their child’s first and most important teacher and family engagement activities support that belief.

I created the form to cover just one week because I believe that would be developmentally appropriate for preschoolers and parents are more likely to participate if it was for one week rather than the full month. If you wanted to observe for the full month, just print multiple pages.

>>> Download the Moon Observation Form

(with parent engagement text)

Moon Observation Form 2

(without parent engagement text)

More Space Themed Activities

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

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January 29, 2018 by Stacy Leave a Comment

Creating sensory bins is one of the most fun parts of planning my environment. Each one can be different depending on the theme we’re learning about. Nearly anything can go into a bin, just see what you have! I pulled together a combination of materials we already had to create our dinosaur sensory bin. For inspiration, I’ve included some other dinosaur sensory bins that might be of interest to you.

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Dinosaur Sensory Bins

There are lots of options for making dinosaur sensory bins. Ours is an excavation dig theme. The dinosaur bones set pictured was originally from the dollar spot at Target several years ago. I’ve included links to other dinosaur skeleton sets that you might consider.

Need Supplies:

sand
rocks
Dino-Dig Excavation Kit or the following items:
dinosaur skeleton bones
small dinosaurs
sand sifting scoops & shovels
magnifying glasses
clear deli containers
small funnels

Sifting sand and finding dinosaur bones is exciting!

Offering a variety of materials allows children to play in different ways.

The sifters that are pictured are no longer available but some are included in this Dino-Dig Excavation set. I wish they were more readily available. I bought mine on clearance from Discount School Supply and I can’t seem to find them elsewhere. A sand sensory bin staple!