An awesome creation

I say this a hundred times, but the thing about teaching is, the kids teach me all the time.  For the last few days we have had water in the sensory bins in my room.  This is nothing unusual.  Water is a pretty common sensory bin filler.  In it I placed many scoops, funnels, sponges, spoons, etc.  I also had a wheel in it (always fun for the first ten minutes), an old fashioned hand mixer,  and two turkey basters.

In this water table there are several things that they explored.  I added soap yesterday so they spent a lot of time creating many bubbles using the mixer and sponges to whisk up and squeeze out bubbles.  I added ice and they scooped and melted ice.  They also put the the funnel wide side up over the turkey baster end so that it extended the length.  

The Discovery

The greatest discovery, however, came a half an hour before lunch.  One little girl, we will call Brenda, was occupied with the idea of getting the turkey baster to squirt straight up in the air.  She couldn't because there was not enough water in the bulb to go up the length of the tube, not even to just pour and dribble over the sides.  Seeing this, a friend, we will call Georgia, attached a right side- up funnel to the upside down turkey baster and began pouring water into the funnel.  It took a while for her to realize that she had to squeeze the bulb of the turkey baster to get the water to run down into the baster and not remain in the funnel, but once she did it was fantastic.  They would shoot water  out the top of the funnel by squeezing the bulb of the turkey baster-  taking turns being the girl to stabilize the device, and the girl to squeeze the bulb.  They would refill and do it over and over, now adding another friend, Tina, to the mix.  It wasn't long before the entire room was watching these three girls.  Sometimes it shot out with a kind of coarse mist and other times just a thin stream.  Sometimes they would add too much water and it would just bubble over in the funnel.  Sometimes the water shot out only a few inches, other times it hit the ceiling (about 9 feet high)  and traveled a few feet across the room!

What they learned

So what was the point of this?  Was this just "another day" at play?  No, no, this was something big.  At lunch most days I go around the table and ask each child what they liked about today.  Every single child said that the thing they liked best today was when Brenda and Georgia were shooting the water out of their creation, even the ones who were just watching.  They learned something that day, they learned about the power of water, the power of suction, and the power of air.  They may not know these words yet, (although I probably mentioned them during the course of this activity) but when they encounter the word "suction" they have a concrete experience to attach it to.  

More than this, they learned about team work.  They could never have done this without an extra set of hands to stabilize the device.  

They also created, on their own, a simple machine; If that does not empower a child, if that does not build self esteem, if that does not inspire them to build and create, if that does not create passion for them, I don't know what does.  

This will be a lasting memory for many of these children, and sometimes positive memories that contain them doing GREAT things, is what it is all about.  

A lesson for you, a lesson for me

Like I said at the beginning, these children teach me all the time, and boy did I learn something today.  Three and a half years ago when I started teaching this discovery NEVER would have happened.  I would have been too wrapped up in getting them to keep the water in the sensory bins on the table.  Yes, I had a lot of cleaning today, and yes, one little girl slipped and fell, but that same girl refused ice because she wanted to get back to the activity as soon as she could.  They had so much fun today, and they worked so hard, and took turns and worked together.  I could never teach that by showing them how to do this, (though truthfully I never would have thought of using those two tools that way- my imagination is limited as an adult, not to mention my inclination to explore or try something that doesn't make "sense"), they taught themselves how to make it.  I also could not teach them something like the necessity of sharing and team work.  I could tell them "if you share, if you take turns, and if you work together, it would be more fun,"  but they never would have believed me, or really even internalized that statement.  Yet, they were sharing, not because they knew that "good" girls share, but because if they didn't share the other friend would stop helping, making it impossible to do, and because it is more fun to experience  something like that with a friend.  Joy shared is joy doubled, (I think that is how the saying goes),  and indeed the sheer delight those girls experienced was contagious.  I know beyond a doubt that this was better than any "teacher project" they could have done.  Preschoolers are not designed to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher teach AT them.  Sitting around and talking about water, about snow, about rain, is not really learning for them.  They have to see it, touch it, play with it, manipulate it, and do what perhaps some overly discerning adult would tell them not to do.  Children can harness potential, passion, and creativity in a way adults only dream they could.   

It is times like this that I wonder how many times I am holding them back from a major discovery by putting unnecessary limits and boundaries in their world.  By telling them not to do something or even by telling the TO DO something- am I hindering their natural instinct to learn and explore their environment?  More and more I realize that, as silly as it sounds, my role should be a "facilitator of learning, "  not a "teacher" in the traditional sense.  It is my job to know what they NEED to learn and to bring them the tools, the space, the time to learn it.  Everyday we as teachers, (or sometimes we as parents), have to create the environment and circumstances for children to learn.  These children teach me how to teach them everyday, and sometimes they teach me how to make a fountain/ shooter/ geyser/ out of a turkey baster and funnel.  

A big clean mess

My class has been begging to do cabbage juice experiments ever since we did the project a week ago.  However, I can't really take the smell of cabbage anymore.  It literally has always turned my stomach.  I think it is because I grew up in a rural area and so when I smell cabbage I think of the rotting cabbage field smell?  Anyway, on to more important things.  

Since cabbage juice is out for at least 3 months (and hopefully they will stop asking by then), I thought a little free experimenting was in order.  So today I loaded up our table with acids and bases:  Lemons (cut in half), medium grape fruits (cut in quarters), baking soda, alka seltzer tablets, dish soap, and water. With these things, surely any child can create a potion to suit their fancy, and as a matter of fact they made not one, but at least 5 each.  

Lemons are actually the most acidic citrus fruit followed by limes and the grapefruit.  The beautiful thing about the grapefruit is that they are so easy to squeeze and have a ton of juice in them. The reason for giving them the actual fruit is that, to me, it makes it more real when they actually see it coming out of the fruit.  Squeezing also slows them down, so in theory they are able to take in more of what is happening, and also is a great motor exercise; They really have to use those little hand muscles on the lemons!

They went through many grapefruit and lemons in this experiment. 

I had assumed that they would be more likely to use lemons, since they would yield a greater reaction but they seemed to prefer the grapefruit for two reasons. First, the grapefruit (as I said earlier) were easier to squeeze juice from, and second, like most 4 year olds they have small "boo-boos" on their hands and they found that the grapefruit didn't sting their boo-boos like the lemon did.  


In any case, they were able to create a wide variety of reactions (and "potions").  

This was probably one of the best reactions we had: a little baking soda, some soap and a big squeeze of lemon, it eventually overflowed the container.

I think this one had three or four alka seltzer, water, soap, baking soda, and maybe a pinch of grapefruit juice

One little girl was working on a cup that was not really reacting beyond a few bubbles no matter how many alka seltzer tablets she put in.  You can see here that when she dumped it on a top the alka seltzer were still whole, protected in a layer of baking soda and soap.  (In this mixture there was only water, dish soap, baking soda and alka seltzer).

You can see that once she added lemon juice several things began to happen: the baking soda bubbled, the alka seltzer began to dissolve, and swirling patterns emerged in the liquid resulting from the reactions.

One child put an alka seltzer tablet on the grapefruit and on the lemon and then gave them each a little squeeze.  The one on the lemon dissolved first, as you might imagine.  


After they had successfully used all available cups and containers  and neutralized almost everything, they were content to just mix their potions with each other, pouring them back and forth and adding water and baking soda, (the only things left from the 2 dozen lemons and dozen grapefruit), stirring, and pouring some more.  To get water, by the way, they used turkey basters instead of pipettes- allowing them to use more at once.  The basters also became instrumental in transferring liquids between cups for them and doubled as stirring utensils.  I got this idea from somebody's   blog but I cannot remember to whom the blog belonged, so if it belonged to you- let me know and I will link you to this entry.  


They really enjoyed this experiment, (although maybe not quite as much as cabbage juice).  One child did ask me if they could have the vinegar (remembering the power of the vinegar from the last experiment, no doubt).  However, because vinegar is much better suited for outdoors science projects, and because we were out of vinegar thanks to the cabbage project, they made do with the lemon juice.  


**Another really awesome thing about this project is that between the lemon, baking soda and soap, it makes any room smell amazing! It is a welcome change from cabbage juice.  Those three ingredients are also great for cleaning, so the table and floor that the project is on will clean up beautifully- it actually took  a couple of stains off the table that ordinarily I would use Commet for when the kids weren't around.  :-)

The evolution of paintings and the painter

Admittedly, I did not know that much when I first starting teaching.  I made a lot of mistakes, and learned a lot along the way. (To be fair to myself I had a lot of good instincts and completed each year far above just survival).  Still, looking back, I wish I had known what I know now, and I am sure that as time goes on I will wish that again for the present time.


When I first started teaching I could not figure out why most of the paintings my students made looked something like this:

These paintings are actually a little more colorful and imaginative than most of the others I had back then.  Every time I "let them" paint, this is what they made: brown pictures, or various shades of brownish- blackish green pictures, usually covered with paint coast to coast.  Why?  I could see in their drawing that they had miraculous figures and doodles, but why didn't they translate over to painting?  On one hand, it was okay, because they liked painting and painting is a great art/ sensory/ motor activity.  On the other hand, I couldn't help but feel something was wrong, especially when I saw other teachers had their class creating paintings something like this:

When I broke down and asked a teacher I knew why her children's pictures were different than mine she said that she made them not mix the colors on their paper. There was a voice in my head that said that this could not be right.  Children needed to be able to experiment! They needed to have control over their own creative process.  Still, I didn't know what I was doing wrong.  

I started trying to use water colors; the results for some children seemed "better" but many of the children still ended up making pictures that looked like their other paintings, just watered down.  

My revelation came on a day near a holiday when I had just four children there.  I got out the paints and put them on the table with paper and let them paint; nothing was different... yet.  They asked if they could paint another, and I let them, (still nothing different), but they continued to ask for more paper to paint more and I continued to let them paint.  I let them paint as many pictures as they wanted.  

Then, to my amazement, the figures from their drawings started to appear! They made interesting designs that I had never seen before and experimented with the paint in new ways! Paintings that probably looked something like this:

I am horribly embarrassed by not knowing this when I started teaching, and I wish often that I could go back to that class and LET THEM PAINT!  But, I am sharing this because maybe someone else can learn from it, or maybe someone else made the same mistake.

Two paintings three times a week is not enough.  Children learn through repetition and experimentation (which I knew, but didn't apply to art).  Every time a child steps up to the art supplies they are experimenting.  Every time a child uses a new art supply they have to learn as many possibilities for that art supply that they can.  They can't decide NOT to paint their entire paper brown until they know that mixing all the colors together and rubbing them across the paper makes a brown, crunchy painting.  They cannot create many possibilities until they have made others and eliminated other possibilities as being "undesirable" to themselves.  Every time I put out a new supply, most children make a brown picture or a picture with a lot of mixed colors and a lot of paint.  (In the words of Bev Bos "children need to use too much").  I see this over and over again.  Not only do they learn about the texture of the paint and about color mixing, but they are teaching themselves self regulation.  They are teaching themselves how much paint is "too much,"  that all the colors together make brown, and they don't like brown. Until they decide what they do not want to do, until they have eliminated that possibility, they cannot possibly do anything else... and how could I expect them to? 

The way to teach them how to make purple is not to tell them and then show them, it is to give them the materials, walk away, and let them figure it out for themselves. Furthermore, telling them not to mix colors is cheating them from a learning experience, not teaching them SELF regulation (since the regulation is, after all, being done by the teacher), and I am certain that this can qualify as some sort of torture since we KNOW they are just dying to mix those paints. 

Now that I know this, I do almost every art project at least two days in a row and we have painting or some other new art medium EVERYDAY.  The children can make as many paintings or pictures as time allows for.  I wish I had known this my first few months, so that the children had a FULL YEAR to paint  and create like children ought to be able to.  I cheated them, for months, I cheated them.  In the end, however, it is them I have to thank, for teaching me how to be a better teacher.