Welcome to my Favorite things Friday recap post and link up! I want to hear about your favorite activities, crafts, experiments, and moments from the past week! Because I’m about to share mine 😉
1. Ocean Water Experiment
This is such a simple and yet fun experiment from our Mother Goose Time curriculum this month and really makes a unit study about the ocean come to life! All you need are three cups, (notice the different colored straws I used to stir and help me remember which was which). Add 1 tsp. of salt to one, 1 tsp. of sugar to another, and leave the third as plain water. I then created observation cards without giving away which was which. I made the kids line up back where they couldn’t see (so they would each be surprised when it was their turn) and replaced the stir straws with popsicle sticks (if you have a daycare rather than a family setting, you may want to use seperate plastic cups and sticks for each child). The kids came up one by one, tasted the water on the stick and wrote their observations.
My favorite part about this, other than the adorable looks of disgust when they tasted the salt water, was watching them write down their observations on the card. Aliyah turns 3 today and even she was able to do a happy face for the ones she liked and a sad face for the one she didn’t. While they wrote down their thoughts, I explained that the one with salt is about the level of saltiness in the ocean. Considering we are most likely moving there very soon, this was a big eye opener for the kids. They have known the ocean is salty, but tasting just HOW salty was definitely an “aha” experience. Yay for shocking (and simple) science experiments!
2. Exploring the Ocean Floor and Making our Own Oysters!
This was beyond fun. We did a lot of discussion on the ocean floor, what creatures live there, and learned about Oysters. Then we grabbed a small paper plate and painted it, making a string of “pearls” to go inside. Another simple activity that brought hours of creativity and fun!
All you need:
- small paper plates
- blue and light pink paint and brushes
- white beads
- a white pipe cleaner
First, fold your plate in half, paint the outside blue and the inside “mouth” pink. Then allow the kids to string the beads onto the pipe cleaner and twist the ends together to secure. This doubles as a beautiful pearl bracelet and is a fantastic hands on activity for preschoolers!
Yet another great learning activity from Mother Goose Time!
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