Another Celery Dyeing Experiment

Last week I shared our colour experiment using Skittle candies.

It didn't work as well as I had hoped so we cleaned out the Skittle jars

and refilled each jar with coloured water.

Within a day colour had seeped up into the celery.

blue

purple

red

green

Yellow was the only colour that either didn't work 

or we just couldn't see it because of the colour of the leaves.

An extension we did was to take one romaine lettuce leaf,

split it in half, part way up

then insert each half into it's own jar of colour.

Above is yellow and red,

and this one is blue and red.

Within an hour the colour was working it's way up the stalk.

The next morning the red and yellow was very noticeable up the leaf.

It was surprising that we could really notice the yellow in the leaf

when we couldn't see it in the celery in our earlier experiment.

Unfortunately the other leaf had wilted and didn't work.

We may re-do it with a new fresher leaf.

Hedge Maze Scavenger Hunt

    Today was our monthly outdoor day and we visited a local nursery.
                  
    It was a perfect morning to be out and exploring flowers and plants.
                    
When we arrived Cassandra, the owner, had set up a table with soil and
tomato plants for the families to re-pot one and take it home.

She offered two kinds of tomatoes and after the children chose one they filled their pot and added their plant.  I look forward to hearing how each grows and if they produce any tomatoes.
   
   
We spent a little time exploring the greenhouses.  This nursery is very family friendly.
 
                 
And just before the opening to the Hedge Maze there is a little putting
green, with clubs and balls.  That was very popular. 
     
     Entering the maze everyone picked a book that contained pictures.
          
They had to search through the maze to find the same pictures hanging
                                   on the hedges.       
                      
Then they stamped their book to keep track that they found them all.
                        

One thing that I have learned by observing young children is that they like to search.  Today some of the children would run ahead of their grown-ups to find the next picture.  After finding several they were quite familiar with what to do and could stamp their book on their own.
              
     
Once everyone made it through the maze we met in the middle for songs, story and snacks.

                    Thank you to Paradise Plants for a great morning.

Experimenting with Colours

     A week ago I shared a post about painting daffodils at a table with
                       small easels made from pizza boxes.
              
    Last Friday was the beginning of changing the daffodils to carnations.  
          We started by doing the carnation colour changing experiment.

   The children added colour dye to bottles of water, sometimes having to
                                mix two colours to make a new one.
             
         
        They each added a flower to their bottle and we talked about our
                            predictions of what might happen.

           
Monday morning the families arrived to see our daffodils and tulips moved off our painting table and in their place were the carnations.  We noticed, right away, how the white carnations now had colour around the edges of the petals.
 
This week most of the children understood that the flowers in the middle of
                           the table were there as a subject to paint.
 
I also changed the paints to watercolours.  I noticed that the children enjoyed using the small paint palette to mix the colours.  Some learned that the more water they used, on the paint, the darker the colour would be on the paper.
                      
   Some came to the table with a different subject in mind and with focus
                        was able to paint it on the paper.