As a seed germinates and grows, it is hard for children to understand what goes on beneath that mystic cover of soil. Of course you can sprout bean seeds in a plastic bag (just drop in a wet paper towel and presoaked bean seed, seal ‘er up and watch it open up over the course of a few days). That’s a great staple among preschool activities, but if you also want to watch the development of the seed into a plant with a root system, you might want to try this idea.
Make at Home Montessori
I bet you didn’t know they were giving out free Montessori tools at your local hardware store! I’ll tell you how, but first I must start with the disclaimer that I am not a Montessori teacher. I studied child development, and so, I examined a range of developmental theory and teaching philosophy. I find that as I teach, I don’t strictly espouse any one pedagogy but pick from the variety I studied and implement them as they fit the child and circumstance. That being said, I would like to share with you a little discovery I made recently.
3-2-1 Blast Off! Film Canister Rockets
If you haven’t done film canister rockets yet, boy are you missing out! I’ll give you a quick run down on the old favorite and then let you in on a colorful little twist I’ve recently discovered!
Butterfly Fold Art
Here’s a great butterfly art project that is not only fun and fancy, but reinforces small motor skills and creativity, as well as the concept of symmetry.
Prepare these supplies:
Finger-painting with Shaving Cream!
Finger-painting is an experience that no preschooler should be denied! Plunging bare fingers right into the mushy, colorful goodness and then spreading color directly from finger to paper is a gratifying experience for both the young and the young at heart! It promotes fine motor development, and is ideal for children for whom manipulating tools is difficult. It is also a fantastic sensory experience, both for touch and also for smell and sound depending on the medium used. There are plenty of different ways to do finger-painting (I’ll try to give you a few to choose from on this site) but perhaps one of the easiest ways is to use shaving cream! Shaving cream is a great medium from an adult perspective because it’s cheap, accessible, and extremely washable. Kids love it because it’s foamy! (OK, I love it because it’s foamy too.)
Behold, the Power of Soap! Getting Preschoolers to Wash Their Hands
Photo by emospada.
I have to admit, I’m a bit of a germophobe. I know that sounds very strange coming from someone who works with young children, often holding little hands that have just been used as Kleenexes, but rest assured, I go through plenty of soap and hand sanitizer! I try, as best I can, to pass on this hand-washing habit (minus the compulsion and phobia) to the youngsters I teach. Teaching young children to wash their hands has always been important. With current flu fears, it becomes more paramount. Simply being vigilant about washing hands goes a long way in promoting good health! So here’s one way I teach children the importance of washing their hands, while interjecting a bit of enthusiasm for the task via a bit of magic (formally referred to as “science“).
Crayon Melting, Dino Style
If you work with preschoolers, you have them. Those partially unwrapped, broken crayons piled up in a box or ice cream bucket. Well here’s a way to use those nubbins up!
Get an old cheese grater (it’s a pain to clean wax, so use one you can devote to the arts) and let your little ones help you grate up those crayon cast-offs into a colorful assortment of shavings. (While you’re doing this, warm up your iron on a medium setting.) Next, fold a piece of wax paper in half, and have the children arrange the shavings inside the “paper sandwich”. Place the paper sandwich into an art towel sandwich (one on the bottom to protect your surface from wax leaks and heat, and a thin one on top to protect your iron from the same). Depending upon the age and maturity of your children, you may point out that they may hold the handle of the iron with you while you rub it across the towel covered wax paper, or, if that’s too risky, just put them in charge of counting. (Your total counting time will depend on the thickness of your top towel, but start with say 10-15 seconds.) Check to see if the wax has been satisfactorily melted. Add more time if needed.
Dinosaur Erosion
After seeing an erosion table at a nearby museum, I decided to implement the same concept on a much smaller scale in my sensory table. There are three vital ingredients here: sand (you can buy a large bag for a little money at Home Depot), water filled spray bottles, and dinosaur figures. After placing the sand in the sensory table, add the dinosaurs and mix well. You want some to be buried, some to sit on top, and a few somewhere in between. Provide spray bottles filled with water so that the children can spray water to erode the sand and unearth the dinosaurs. Inevitably, they will incorporate some dramatic play as they create storylines involving storms, floods, or dinosaurs trapped in quicksand.
This type of activity gives children that time-honored sensory experience of mixing sand and water. That could be reason alone for doing this activity, but there’s more! Using spray bottles takes a great degree of fine motor strength and control, as well as hand-eye coordination for keeping aim while firing! Science and language skills come into play as the children notice and talk about the effects of the water on the sand; not only that it changes the texture and consistency of the sand pile, but that the sand can be moved by the force of water. This can also lead to discussions about the concept of erosion, or about how dinosaur fossils and remains are found as earth is moved, perhaps by erosion, exposing the prehistoric treasures!
Leave Your Mark! Making Fossil Imprints with Preschoolers!
A unit on dinosaurs hardly seems complete without talking a bit about fossils! The common way of using plaster of Paris to make hardened imprints seemed a bit daunting to me, particularly when I read through the warning label, not to mention the mixing, the mess, and a number of excited preschoolers involved in the process. For our dinosaur unit we made fossil imprints using baking soda clay. I simply made the clay the night before and left it in a sealed Ziplock bag. After reading our dinosaur book and talking about fossils in small group, each child was given a paper plate and a small ball of soda clay to flatten. Then they could choose from plastic dinosaurs to make footprints and/or large seashells to press in for a texture print. I also included a note explaining to parents that the clay needed to air dry at least overnight to harden to it’s “fossilized” state. (Hopefully, you can see the imprint in the picture above. If I had been thinking more about photography than preschool, I would have gone for a little more color interest here!)
The children enjoyed making their own fossil imprints, while they also gained science knowledge about dinosaurs, and the formation of the evidence of them that remains today. Language skills increased as they talked about their own creations and incoporated new terms, such as “imprint”, “fossil”, and “trace”. I enjoyed watching them experience all of this without having to chip plaster of Paris out of my carpet, or someone’s beautiful braid! Here’s the recipe so you can try it out for yourself!
Make Your Sensory Table Pop: Using Popcorn as a Sensory Medium
The sensory table is an area of the preschool room that children go to because, as the name implies, they are drawn in by the many appeals to the senses. Few activities I have done in the sensory table have drawn as much widespread interest as popcorn kernels. My guess is that it’s because it draws in the sense of hearing, as few other media do. It literally calls the children over to explore. Every time those kernels fall, they rap against each other, or against the plastic bottom, making almost as much sound as popcorn actually popping!
I began my popcorn-as-a-medium collection with the help of my two-year old, who managed to spill quite a bit from our pantry onto the floor…and mix it with the rice…and the flour. Well, no use crying over spilled milk, or grains, so I sifted it out and added it to the sensory table. Along with the popcorn, I included paper-towel tubes, funnels, clear tubing (from Home Depot) and my sand mill, along with several scoopers (from laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and infant formula containers for a variety of sizes). The children loved filling the paper towel tubes to the brim and then lifting them up, letting all the kernels drop to the bottom, rapid-fire like rain on a tin roof. Without even knowing it, they experimented with math principles of size, volume, and circumference, as well as motor skills as they scooped and poured the hypnotic golden grains. I even included a small funnel, which I knew would likely not allow the large kernels to pass through, just to create the questions that would lead to learning. Pour a little popcorn into your sensory table and see what concepts your children tackle!
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- Next Page »