ice, failure, spiders, and pests

Do you ever have times when the "lesson" you planned for a paticular day completely flops?  It doesn't happen to me very often, but whenever it does I am always surprised that something ALWAYS emerges from that failure.
Today, I had planned a big ice activity (I will spare all of the details until this project is successful).   We put containers with water outside and I asked for a hypothesis about what would happen.  There were two answers:  1. The water would evaporate  and 2.  It would turn into ice.  However, when we checked it an hour and a half later NOTHING had happened, (although the children astutely observed that the water got really cold).  The reason?  The temperature outside was 33 degrees.  SERIOUSLY?  33 DEGREES?  I was frustrated.  Why didn't it freeze, Miss Elizabeth?  Well, it seems it is not quite cold enough outside.  It feels cold to us!  Yes, it is cold but it needs to be a little colder, 32 degrees, to freeze, and I just checked the thermometer and it is 33 degrees.  Do you think we should leave it overnight and see if it freezes?  YES!!
Surprisingly, they weren't frustrated by this, and didn't seem to mind waiting until tomorrow.

We went back inside and play resumed as usual.  I set to work hanging clothes line across the ceiling to hang pictures up on.  Apparently, according to "the regs" I have too much art on the walls- only "20% of the wall can have paper on it,"  so as a solution, and so that we can still have children's art work in the room,  I am hanging some on the ceiling.

*instructions for the art on the front row can be found here, and for the back row here.

What are you doing, Miss Elizabeth?  Hanging some rope.  For what? To hang paintings.  Why? To decorate our room and display your art work.  Can we decorate our room? If you want to.  What do you need? Yarn.

So I gave them some yarn, and they started "decorating" the area where the blocks are kept.  It started out as just strands of yarn here and there, but eventually they decided to make a "spider web."  

As you can see they worked very diligently, both boys and girls together.  

We left it up for the entirety of the day.  They enjoyed adding to it and crawling under and over the strings.  

The spider web did its job and captured a pest!

A little spider even slept in the web during nap time.  (You can see the blue cot in the corner of this photo).  

The spider also got our table.  The kids thought it was interesting that the table was round, but the spider web was square because of the legs.  

All and all it was a good day.  They also played limbo and jump rope with the string.  So I guess the moral of the story not to fear when my plans don't work out, the children will always find something else to learn from.  

"If it hasn't been in the hand, it can't be in the brain"

"If it hasn't been in the hand, it can't be in the brain."  Bev Bos

Here are some ideas to accomplish just that.  Most of these things can be used multiple ways- in and out of sensory bins, at home and in schools.  

#1: Mixed dried beans 

Last week we had beans in the sensory bin (actually there were peas and corn as well). This isn't really anything special, but it it really pretty and promotes sorting.  They were specifically fascinated by picking out the huge white lima beans. 

The mix of kidney beans, pinto beans, white lima beans, black beans, black eyed peas, split peas, and left over indian corn kernels make up this mix, but really any mixture of beans/ etc will do.  Below you can see there were spoons scoops and cups in the sensory bin but also sometimes ice trays or muffin tins can encourage sorting as well.

#2: Goop (also known as "Cloud Dough")

Last week we also made what my kids call "goop"- a concoction borrowed from Lisa Murphy, the Ooey Gooey Lady.   This mixture is made up of only two ingredients flour and baby oil- so you have double sensory smell and touch.  (I love the smell of baby oil).  

I let them help make the goop, they decided to have just slightly more runny than doughy.  

They also wanted to add a little blue.  

After a while they asked if we could have more goop in the sensory bin, so we made more- this time the "goop" was much more like dough.  

#3:  Moon Sand

Recently, a parent donated four small bags of Moon Sand with "Moon Sand toys" to our classroom.  While, yes, you can make really cool sensory things on your own or use just wet sand, Moon Sand is pretty cool, and versatile.  For anyone unfamiliar with it, it holds shape like wet sand and never dries out.  This Moon Sand came with some houses, a swing, some cars, and some people molds. They didn't care much about the swing or houses, but they (of course) loved the car, and also really loved the people molds. 

I put it out on box tops, (that we seem to have an abundance of), for easy set up and clean up.  They seem to enjoy it as a quiet activity.  This is also really great for any children that require sensory input. If he or she starts losing control I can just pop the top on the table and ask the child if he or she would like to play with Moon Sand (the answer is always yes).  For an "on the go" option, I can put it in a ziplock and stick it in my apron pocket, then when I need it I just hand the bag to the child and let him or her squeeze the bag.  It works for sensory input or as a transition activity.  


#4: Water, ice, snow

See entry here about water play.  There is really no end to what they can do playing with water in any form.  






#5:  Colored Noodles, Scented Rice


I took full advantage of the snow day today to create some new things for collages, mosaics, and our sensory bin.  


The scented rice idea came from this entry at teachpreschool.org. I modified it slightly, however.  In a bowl I mixed 2 packets of Koolaid with 3 teaspoons of boiling water and a teaspoon and a half of rubbing alcohol, until completely dissolved.  Next I put this liquid into a ziplock bag containing six cups of dry rice.  I mixed the rice and liquid completely.  Then I laid it out for four hours on wax paper before putting it in an air tight container. 

For the pasta I started with the instructions found here, but, again, modified it.  I used only a teaspoon of food coloring, and three teaspoons of rubbing alcohol, then added it to a ziplock bag containing 3 cups of pasta.  The instructions at the website above suggest that there should be more food coloring and less pasta, but as you can see below the pasta is quite dark and while they will lighten a bit when they completely dry, it will not be a lot.  

Purple mini rotinelle (wheels)

Green mini farfalle (bow ties)

mini orecchiette (shells)

Hot pink mini radiatori (nuggets)

Have fun and enjoy; I know we will. 

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.