Science

Creating Seed Mosaics

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!

I received curriculum from Mother Goose Time for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. After using Mother Goose Time for about 10 years, I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Mother Goose Time! #sponsored #MGTblogger

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Planting Seeds in Preschool

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

There’s no end to the ways you can set up your dinosaur sensory bin. Use some creativity and make more than one.

Rotate your sensory bin often so children do not become bored with the contents.

Our Dinosaur Egg Sensory Bin was awesome too!

Check out these great dinosaur themed sensory bins!

Be inspired by all the materials in this: Dinosaur Sensory Bin | Fantastic Fun & Learning

Try making some frozen dinosaur eggs: Excavating Eggs | Parenting Chaos

A colorful literacy and dinosaur skeleton themed bin:

Outrageously Fun Dinosaur Sensory Bin | Color the Moon

More Sensory Play Ideas

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

January 8, 2018 by Stacy Leave a Comment

We are well into our January theme, Dinosaur Dig. It’s been so fun learning about paleontology! Investigating the science of rocks and fossils, creating an excavation dig and making fossils. Using a dinosaur fossil clay recipe, we mixed up some dough that dries well and looks like a fossil!

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

The Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe uses simple ingredients:

1 cup of coffee grounds (used grounds work well – I used several used K-cups)
1/2 cup of cold coffee
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt

Mix the ingredients ahead of time or invite children to help. Roll out a ball of dough. Press a small object into the dough. Bake the fossils at 200 degrees for 30 minutes.

They took turns stirring the mixture.

I love that this little guy is “helping” his friend mix by holding his arm. So much to be learned through hands-on activities!

Our dinosaur fossil clay recipe is coming together!

Everyone was interested in helping. Can we eat it? It’s safe to eat but it won’t taste good!

Playing with Dinosaur Fossil Clay

Try this awesome STEAM science and nature idea: Fossil Press. Try various objects to test pressing them into the dough and seeing the impressions.

First, we played with the dough like play dough. The dinosaur fossil clay recipe has a rough, gritty texture. It’s different than we usually play with!

After exploring and experimenting with the dough for a while, we rolled our dough into balls. Then flattened with our hands, pushing down to make a flat surface for our fossils.

Using our dinosaur figures, we pushed the dinosaurs feet, tails or heads into the dinosaur fossil clay.

It was fun to see what kinds of imprints they made.

Some were not quite ready to make fossils. Instead, they played with the dinosaurs and dough.

Feeding the dinosaur!

Eventually, everyone made fossils.

This T-Rex’s feet were awesome for making fossil prints.

The whole time we worked with the dough and dinosaurs, the children were developing hand strength.

Baking Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

After making imprints in the dough, we carefully moved the fossils to a pan.

After baking them at 200° for 30 minutes (or longer), they were done! The completed fossils are quite durable. Not too crumbly. I put them in baggies for them to take home.

When we looked at the completed fossils, we could find the dinosaur and match up the footprints or part of the dinosaur that we used to make the prints. The dough did not shrink up.