Science - Thursday

Alright - it may be my inner-nerd, but I am SO EXCITED for all this science stuff! I remember as a kid (ok, and often as a right-brained adult) thinking science was magical.

And really the science behind what I perceived to be magic is incredible. One of the skills I truly hope I can instill in Little Miss I is a sense of both wonder and inquiry. Science-based games and activities are the perfect way to start doing so.

Inquiry Skills

PBS Skill Targeted: "Uses all five senses (touching, tasting, hearing, seeing, and smelling) to collect information about the world."

Activity:
Spring Sensory Tub(s) This Hat is Tipped to my sweet childhood friend Shalee Brown. When we went out to dinner a few weeks ago she mentioned how her son loved sensory experiments at his preschool, and that potting soil made a great sensory tub base!

Directions:
 Fill a container with potting soil. Bury different objects from around the house in the potting soil and then gather up your kids and dig away! Your little one will marvel at the feel of the potting soil in their hands and love finding the surprises buried within. This is a great OUTSIDE activity, with a nice follow up posted below.

Materials:
A container you don't mind getting dirty
A bag of potting soil
small toys and objects

Parenting Pointers:
Other great sensory fillers include birdseed, dried beans and sand.

Knowledge of Life Sciences:

PBS Skill Targeted: "Learns to identify some plants and animals. Can name some parts of animal bodies and some parts of plants."

Activity:
Planting Seeds

Directions:
It only makes sense to plant something in all that potting soil we have left over from our first science activity of the day - and potted flowers or flower seeds will be perfect.

Plant the seed, water it and leave it in a nice sunny spot.

The best part of this activity is that it can continue over the next several weeks as you and your little ones check on the potted plant each day to see how it grows. You can measure the first sprouts and watch it grow bigger and bigger.

Materials:
A small pot
Seeds
Soil
Water

Knowledge of Physical Science

PBS Skill Targeted: "Identifies various properties (EG hard v. soft) of objects and materials while exploring the immediate environment."

Activity:
Frozen in Ice

Hats Tipped To Creekside Learning for this activity.

Directions:
This takes a little bit of preparation that can be done with or without your little ones.

Fill a pie pan with water, and drop objects into the water that your child is interested in or working on. Little Miss I has some plastic letters we often string on shoelaces, she loves them dearly, so I used them in setting this activity up tonight. After putting together my letter pie pan, I decided to make a second one using some plastic shapes from a Candy Land Game, since we have also been working on shapes around here as of late.

After your pie pan is loaded with water and objects, set it in the freezer and let it harden over night.

When you pull the pan out the next day your kids will be so excited to see their objects inside the ice. The challenge then becomes getting them out of the ice, and this is where the science comes in.

With your kid(s) experiment with different ways to remove the objects from the ice - chipping, salt, warm water etc.