Airplane Sensory Bin - Water

Last week I posted about our Airplane Sensory bin with blue salt.

This week I cleared out the salt and added blue water.

Sponges replaced the cotton for clouds.

Water play is an attractive activity for many children, especially toddlers.

The sponges were a new sensory experience for some.

They practiced squeezing them under the water and above the water.

They used them to wash the planes.

We pretended the sponges were clouds and wondered:

What happens when clouds fill with moisture?

They make rain!

Changing to water was a fun way to extend our airplane project.

Airport Project

It's that time of year when families are traveling or planning on traveling.

It's a time that we focus on the airport and flying.

 This year we started with asking the children what they know 

and what they wonder about airport and airplanes.

It took us about a week to get a good list of ideas.

In the meantime I contacted our local airport to arrange a tour.

As we waited for our field trip date, we got busy building a model of an airport.

This allowed us to visualize what they told me they know.

They told me they needed a runway and that it was dark so

needed lights.  We used star stickers down the runway for lights.

Simple cardboard boxes turned inside out worked as the buildings.

End of day one and this is what our model looked like.

The next day we drew parking lines and a helicopter pad.

I dug out a toy gas pump and some pylons.

The white jug, in the bottom left hand corner of the photo, is our control tower.

It's often foggy at our airport so there is a light in the top.

Next post I'll share the beginning of building our dramatic play airport.

Celery Experiments

Have you tried to regrow celery? 

We did!  

Two Fridays ago, after cutting the stalks off a bunch of celery, we placed the bottom part in a bowl of water.  The following Monday there were leaves growing from the middle.

           

Wanting to extend our experimenting, we wondered if we added colour to the water would it be soaked up into the leaves. 

                              

We’ve done this experiment using carnation flowers before.

                  

We watched as the red dye mixed in the water and talked about our hypothesis.

                       

Will we begin to see red colour (highlights) in the leaves or the stalk ends?

  

One week later and no sign of red in the leaves or stalk.  

 But the leaves are still growing taller.  

 Next step?  

Try the same experiment with a single celery stalk.

What Lives in Trees?

                 
Awhile back I shared a post about leaves falling and how the
children played with chipmunks in and around our tree.
       
That led to a question, “Which animals like trees?”  and
“Who lives in trees?”.
  
As the children played they thought of animals that like trees; owl, eagle,
small birds, raccoon, and deer were a few they mentioned and I found them
as stuffies.
     
We started to gather quite a few toy animals and used a variety of
baskets for nests and homes.  But I noticed that the tree we were using
was limiting their play and understanding of how the animals used trees. 
       
So a new tree was created out of boxes stacked on top of each other,
covered with paper and holes cut into it so the animals could hide away.
       
More animals were added to the list; snakes, mice, bats and spiders.
          
Books were provided to help us answer questions that the children
have about the animals.

Caterpillars

          
Our caterpillars arrived this week and that began our talk
and investigation into the life cycle of the butterfly.
      
 
We started by recording what the caterpillars look like in their new home.
       

At the art table I pulled out the air dry modeling clay.
 
And we moulded caterpillars of different colours and size.
 
         
I really enjoy this time of year with the beginning of new life. 
Raising butterflies is a quick way to look at a life cycle. 
     
It also promotes wondering out loud. 
Asking questions to develop curiosity and helping us learn
more about our topic.
Stay tune to see what questions we'll ask.

Snail Garden

For the last week we have been growing grass in a tub to invite a few snails into live for awhile.

We used the wheat grass seed again in half of the tub and regular lawn grass seed in the remaining half.
We watered it and watched it grow.  I also brought in flowers for colour and food for the snails.

Today some snails arrived.

It didn't take the snails long to move right in and feel at home.

The snail garden has been a wonderful way to learn about snails; how they move, names of parts of their body, what do they eat, the environment they live in (dry vs moist).

It's wonderful to get up close and really get to know the snails.

We have six of them.

Children are good at teaching each others how to care for living things.