Learning Station - Abc Fossils

Over the weekend I made these Abc fossils for the kiddos to find.  They worked in groups of two, digging for the fossil letters.  Once they found one, they used the brush to dust them off (just like a real paleontologist).  When all the letters were found, the kiddos worked together to put them alphabet in order.

The recipe I used for these was very simple:
1 cup flour
1 cup salt
~ 1 cup water
I used our magnetic fridge letters to press into the dough, then let them air dry.

 I got the idea to create these abc fossils from this blog.

Ocean - Sensory Bin - Dyed Rice

Sensory Bin - I poured the left over dyed rice from making sea stars (click here to see the sea stars) into this bowl and placed our sea critters in it to take a swim.  The kiddos had fun swimming the critters and their fingers through it.

Sensory Play - Bean Bin

When I was setting up my preschool, I knew I wanted to have some sort of sensory bin.  When trying to decide what to fill it with, I went with dried pinto beans.  Not very expensive, large enough to clean up easily (unlike rice), and the beans feel nice when you run your hands through them. 

The kiddos love the beans.  Today they enjoyed pouring and stirring and digging in them again.

Snow: Sensory Bin

This week we are learning about snow.  Fortunately we have snow right now.  So I scooped some up from the yard and brought it inside for the kiddos to play with.  

In circle time we talked about the three states of water:

1. Liquid - like your bathwater, rain, the ocean....
2. Solid - ice or snow
3. Gas - steam

Then I set them loose to discover.  As they played, snow naturally got flung here and there as they scooped and dug.  Soon one of the kiddos noticed the puddles here and there (table, chair, floor).  He said, "Look!  I think this used to be snow!  Now it's water!"  Terrific discovery!

 They had a blast playing with the snow inside.  We did need to put on gloves/mittens after a bit so they could continue their play.  We also made predictions on what we thought would happen to the snow through out the day.  When they went home, there was still snow in the bin, but it was a bit mushier.  I scooped out a cup full to leave in the classroom so when they come back to preschool they can see what happened to their snow.

Sensory Box - Pinto Beans and Letters

Today I put dry pinto beans and the fridge alphabet letters in our sensory box.  My three year olds had a blast scooping and dumping, and occasionally pulling out letters.  I grabbed a couple of ice cream buckets for them to scoop into, they liked that.

My four year olds loved the sensory box too.  I found some empty large spice containers (the ones from Sam's Club) and put them in the box.  The kiddos loved filling the containers and then raining the beans back into the box.  They also worked on forming a bean volcano and later on collecting the "seeds" for spring time.  Great imaginary play.

Coconuts!

In conjunction with "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" week, we decided to do some science with coconuts today.  We started with the coconuts covered under a towel.  The kiddos stuck their hands under and just used the sense of touch to discover the coconuts.  Then we looked at them and shook them to hear the milk inside.

Next we hammered a nail into the coconut so we could drain the milk out and taste it.  None of us were fond of the tasted at all.  Yuckers!  And we were surprised to find the milk was clear!

Then we took our coconut outside and hammered and hammered on it until finally we got it cracked open!  We tasted the coconut flesh inside and were disappointed to find that it tasted like the milk.  Bleck!

I think when I teach this again I'll have some commercial coconut out for the kiddos to taste too.  But it was fun to explore it together and to taste the parts and to hear the milk inside!  That was intriguing.

Digging for buried treasure

Continuing our pirate fun this week (by the way, happy "International speak like a pirate day"!  Arrr!) I set out a big bowl of potting soil and buried a few small toys from the classroom...

The kiddos enjoyed digging for the treasure.  After a few goes at it, one kiddo decided he'd rather bury the treasure and let his friend find it.  The friend agreed and they happily buried and dug up classroom treasures for quite some time.  Nice clean fun!