Blinded by Science

The annual Spring Fling at the library this year was all about science. The decorations doubled as photo props with goggles, test tubes and lab coats. 

The cookies were delicious in the shapes of test tubes, beakers and flasks.

We explored sound waves with a hands-on dancing oobleck experiment.

Now that you've got a taste, I'll take you on a tour. After scanning their hands and coming through the quarantine curtain, the children identified these every day objects as if they were looking at them through a magnifying glass. Can you name them all?

We explored air flow by balancing ping pong balls on a current of air created by a blow dryer.

The precipitation began when the shaving cream clouds filled with blue condensation at the weather station.

Each child made their own color wheel. What does blue and yellow make?

You have to look the part while experimenting, right? So we made mad scientist goggles with crazy hair.

Gumdrop molecular models, yum. Is that a double helix I see?

Oh, water beads. Children of all ages (and lots of adults, too) are fascinated with these little spheres of water. I added an element of play by placing the translucent pipe builders with them.

I'm so happy we had lots of older children since we hold this annual event during Spring Break week. Youngest to oldest had a blast with science!

My favorite activity explored static electricity. It was probably the easiest experiment to set up. I just blew up the balloons and placed them next to a basket of wool items. The kids stuck them everywhere, all over the wall and each other. Even babies had fun with this one!

Who can build the tallest tower? I hung bulletin board paper on the wall to mark the progress of each group. The tower had to stand on its own for 30 seconds. I took this picture half-way through the program, so there were actually two towers taller than this one!

I had so much fun planning this event and I can't wait for Summer Reading Club 2014 "Fizz, Boom, Read!" Sharing with Tuesday Tots and Kids Co-op.

Messy Learning Lab: Baking Cookies

When I'm trying to come up with ideas for activities at the library and at home, I search through the items I already have on hand. It helps to keep costs down and lets me be creative. For the baking cookies activity, I already had icing bags, Kool-aid and icing mix.

At first, I tried to mix the Kool-aid with the shaving cream to put in the bags. It smelled fantastic and looked great but wasn't easy to get into the bags. So I added white glue to the mix and it worked much better. I used pink lemonade Kool-aid and mint icing flavoring (powder). 

The children decorated cardboard cookies with "icing" and "sprinkles" of glitter and shaved soap. Since I mixed shaving cream and glue, the cookies could dry and be used for further imaginative play.

Sharing with the Weekly Kids Co-op and For the Kid's Friday.

Messy Learning Lab: Water and Glowing Fun

The slime I made for the Water and Glowing Messy Learning Lab was a failure. Yep, I think I let the solution sat in the Borax too long. It would stretch a little, then break apart.

It still had an interesting texture and looked beautiful mixed together. Oh, and it bounced!

I found some test tubes and goggles at Discount School Supply that are perfect for preschoolers. The water is tinted with food coloring, yellow, red and blue.

Little scientists work really hard.

In addition to water beads and baby water beads, I also set up watercolor painting on the "water" side of the room.

On the glow-in-the-dark side of the room, I made GID playdough. You add GID paint to any play dough recipe. I didn't like the texture of the play dough after adding the paint, though. It was really sticky. Maybe I should use less paint?

A local furniture store donated a large box for me to poke holes in and stick lots of glow sticks all over.

I expected the glow sticks to wind up in little hands and was not disappointed. At one point, they spanned the length of the room!

The glowing sensory box had hedgeballs, beads, stars, rocks, glow sticks and rattles.

As all the glowing materials need time to charge, I left the lights on in the room for several hours before opening the doors. I also left mini-flashlights at the door for the children to use while in the room.

I set up a black light station with items I had on hand that would glow.

The yellow highlighters worked best on the coloring mat. The white farm animal puppets also worked great under the black light. I have an inexpensive point and shoot camera, so it was difficult to get good pictures in the dark (what with the constant movement).

Not pictured is the glow-in-the-dark silly putty, which turned out to be a favorite with the parents. It's great to play with on hard wood floors and easy to pick up. And that wraps up the water and glowing fun!

Sharing with Tuesday Tots and For the Kid's Fridays.

Kitchen Time

When I was setting up Bobo's school activities and generally moving things around, I set up his kitchen right across from our kitchen. It's easy to create an activity at the moment when I'm cooking, or more likely cleaning, and he isn't interested in helping me.

I must have been cleaning, because he imitated my dish gloves.

Bobo set out to make the family a meal with lemon-scented play dough. His favorite activity, though, is filling those little pitchers and cups with water from the fridge.

Yum, mashed potatoes and ice cream for dessert! He even called us to the table.

Linking to Kids Co Op

Tot School: Halloween 2012

Bobo has been choosing lots of monster and Halloween books during our weekly library visits. I've been sorting and organizing our school supplies. Add those two things together and we've been learning with Halloween type activities for the past month. 

Pictured above (from left to right, top to bottom)

Haunted house sort with black and orange jewels and bone stones
Skeleton magnetic game from last year
Coloring books with Sesame Street Halloween
Linking toys
Alien and Robot Stickers

Bobo's greatest strength at the moment is his imaginative play. Anything can become a world full of rich characters. So when I set up activities, I'm never really sure what is going to happen. Our simple sorting activity became a battle against evil with Batman as the hero.

The linking toys became a quiver for his arrows.

Bobo's other great strength is his Jedi mind trick. This kid can talk me into anything. After looking at the Halloween book, we needed to buy white body paint. Sure! Just look how happy he is, though.

Linked up with:
Read.Learn.Explore.
Taming the Goblin's Halloween Blog Hop

Imaginative Play: A Lesson in First Aid

Bobo loves to dress up, mostly as superheroes. When we visited Ivy Tech last year for their annual Punkin' Chunkin', he showed no interest in the medical room. I still snagged some freebies and put them with his dress up play. After he found these items and put them on, he asked for the "bump, bump thang." Daddy had to translate, "stethoscope."

Then, we brought out the First Aid Kit and had a lesson about injuries, big and small.

The first steps for an emergency are Check, Call and Care. If the injury is small, you can skip the call to 9-1-1.

The inside shows what to do for big to small cuts or lacerations. A head injury is on the very right.

A few days ago, Bobo had a small injury on his arm. We talked about how I took care of it, which just happened to follow the steps in the kit. 

Bobo had the most fun listening to our hearts. He tried to listen to Buzz's heart, but came to the conclusion toys don't have a heartbeat.

Sensory Bin: Egg Surprise!

"What's in the eggs?" queries Bobo. "Is it candy?"

No candy this time, just lots of these little guys.

The duck and dinosaur, or the good guys, in jail. Everything somehow turns into superhero imaginative play.

Bobo exploring the Easter grass.

Rainbow Sticky Collage

Playing with light can be as simple as taping a piece of contact paper to the window. I set out the materials from our Rainbow Sensory Bin.

The collage took the form of a story board. Bobo created monsters and rainbow bridges. He asked to keep it up until dark, then until church and finally "forever." I love pulling into the driveway and seeing the happy rainbow collage.

Rainbow Salt

This activity developed from the color mixing tot tray. I thought it would be fun to add a thin layer of salt and spray colors on it. It was a success and Bobo added more salt for more sensory fun. We used a whole container of table salt and Epsom salt. The bottles are filled with water and food coloring.

Bobo's favorite part was spraying. He also used glitter and beads to hide. The result was sparkly colors!