Slide Painting

Here’s a fun one for summer, and older preschoolers might not even get that messy.  Roll painty balls down the slide!  Of course, if you don’t want your slide to be painty afterward, make sure you cover it with paper.  This paper makes a great background for displaying children’s art inside once it’s dry.

In this picture you can’t really see what’s at the top, but there are several containers with paint them.  We put bins at the bottom of the slides so that the balls wouldn’t get covered in mulch and would be easy to collect.

For cleanup, use the hose.  If your kids are in bathing suits they can go down the slide with the water, cleaning the slide and having fun at the same time.

Alternatively, you can let kids do the painting AS they slide.  They can dip their hands in paint or use sponges.  I probably wouldn’t use paint brushes because, well, somebody could poke their eye out.  That wouldn’t be pretty!  If the kids do the sliding and painting they will be gloriously messy.  Have a hose or other water toy handy for washing off and lots of towels.

Technorati Tags: outside art,summer fun

Grenades

Here you are, the LAST POST (for now) about vinegar and baking soda. Enjoy!

We don’t advocate violence here, but we had trouble coming up with a good name for this one that wasn’t weapon-like. It was either grenade or bomb. I guess ours were more like bombs since we didn’t throw them, but I think next time we’ll toss them. You definitely want to put them down and not stand too close, just in case. Alternatively, if you’ve got a bunch of little geeks, have them don their kid-sized protective eyewear.

For our last baking soda and vinegar experience at alumni camp we did it in little film canisters. Many of them had such tight lids that they just leaked a little when the pressure got too great, so you’ll want to test your canisters before doing it with the children. You want them to pop off, not ooze under pressure.

After camp I found this great Instructable that adds a little twist: a small plastic bag part that prevents the baking soda and vinegar from coming into contact with each other until you throw the grenade. I think this is a fabulous idea. I also think it would be great to add paint or watercolor and create a paper or fabric target of some kind.

Need a refresher on the chemical reaction itself? Baking soda + vinegar = water + carbon dioxide + sodium acetate (more or less).

Technorati Tags: early science,chemistry

“Exploding” Paint

You thought I’d end the baking soda and vinegar business with the volcanoes, didn’t you?  At alumni camp this year we did exploding paint.  The concept is a little cooler than the execution, but it was fun to experiment anyway.

We put some baking soda and paint in snack-sized sandwich bags and then used a funnel to pour in a little vinegar.  Zip it up quickly and then toss it.  At some point, it all bubbles out.  If you throw the bag with some force you get a slightly more exciting event.  We threw the bags onto white paper on a sidewalk so we could see what it looked like later.

We got this idea from one of our early experience education students.  I’m not sure she had actually done it, now that I have.  We did have lots and lots of colored bubbles, so it was fun that way.  But I can’t really say that anything truly exploded.

We also attempted this with Alka-Seltzer and soda water, but the results were about the same.

Need a refresher on the chemical reaction itself?  Baking soda + vinegar = water + carbon dioxide + sodium acetate (more or less).

Technorati Tags: preschool,chemistry,early science

Volcanoes for Preschoolers

You can’t really do a series on baking soda and vinegar without bringing out the volcanoes.  But since most preschoolers have very little practical experience with volcanoes it doesn’t make sense to do any sort of a unit on the things.  Instead, we try to get the sense of one in the hopes that this knowledge helps them learn about them later.

First you need a volcano.  We had made play dough in class with the kids a few days before that had somehow not kept well, so we used that.  The children helped even though they really had no idea what we were going for.  We tried showing them volcano pictures and read a few books but the information didn’t transfer well.  We made two volcanoes and put them on trays that we took outside.  We put a small pile of baking soda inside each model.

Since we’re not going for realism, I let the kids pick the color for the lava.  On the day I took these pictures, they first picked green.  Unfortunately, since the play dough we made was blue, it wasn’t quite the thrill it could have been.  The red lava was much more interesting for the second batch.

As we had practiced with droppers and syringes the day before, that’s what we provided for adding the vinegar to the baking soda.  We were able to do this for quite awhile without reloading.  I was a bit surprised at how little baking soda I had to add for this experience.

Even though we weren’t studying volcanoes we did talk about lava and magma as well as how hot it all would be if they were real.  Some how igneous rocks even got mentioned.

I highly recommend doing this outside or in your sensory table if you can’t go out.  It was spring when we did this, so we all had jackets on and it was still fine.  We had plenty of towels with us but didn’t really need them.  The biggest temptation for them was not to put their hands into the volcanoes.  While that makes for a fun ending, the play dough gets very squishy during the eruptions and can’t support a child’s weight.  Once the hands get in there, it’s all over.  And of course, that’s how it ended!

Allergy Note: We did this with gluten-free play dough.  If you have a gluten allergy in your class, by all means do the same.  It works fine.  If you don’t, regular play dough will work just as well if not better.

Need a refresher on the chemical reaction itself?  Baking soda + vinegar = water + carbon dioxide + sodium acetate (more or less).

Technorati Tags: early science,chemistry,preschool

Baking Soda and Vinegar with Threes

With threes I do a similar setup as I do for the twos, namely on trays.  But instead of squeeze bottles I provide several types of droppers and syringes.  We’re working on our fine motor control as well as investigating how fluids work in addition to our chemistry when we do it this way.  I usually set it out with the droppers and syringes filled so that there’s some instant gratification that encourages the kids to try the droppers and syringes themselves.  Otherwise they sometimes get discouraged before they get success.  Doing it once is usually enough to keep them trying until they get it.

While we’re here, do YOU know how a dropper or a syringe works?  What’s the principle behind it?  Well, I’ll tell you.  It’s a vacuum!  That’s right, you’ve got a little bit of nothing in that dropper when you squeeze out all the air and then put it in the liquid.  When you release the dropper head the liquid fills the vacuum.  For the syringe, you create the vacuum and fill it when you pull up on the plunger.

I put my droppers in a set of watercolor paint cups, but you could just as easily use small cups.  The tricky thing with this setup is refilling the wee cups.  Get yourself a small pitcher and prefill it with the vinegar to make it easy.  But be forewarned: if you put the pitcher in reach of the children you will have helpers!  I’m all in favor of letting kids do the pouring if we’re outside, but our custodian takes issue with saturating the carpet with anything he didn’t do himself so I do the refilling myself when we’re inside.  And yes, I’ve tried to do this with something on the floor to catch the overflow and I’m sure you know how well that worked out if you’ve tried it yourself!  Anyway, I will let the children help me add watercolor to the vinegar, inside or outside.

Threes also enjoy doing this activity in the sensory table.  If you really trust your threes, try putting the vinegar in spray bottles!

Need a refresher on the chemical reaction itself?  Baking soda + vinegar = water + carbon dioxide + sodium acetate (more or less).

Technorati Tags: preschool,chemistry,early science

Chime Wall

Here is a picture of our fabulous, all-weather chime wall. This sucker is expensive but was purchased because of a grant we got. Our music teacher spent some quality personal time writing grant applications and so we are very, very lucky!

The kids love the chime wall. We had it inside our large motor room for awhile, but it was pretty loud in there. We also had to modify the mallets a bit so they couldn’t be inserted in the chimes, necessitating some roto-rooter action by our custodian (you’d think the company would have thought of that).

We put it outside at the start of alumni camp and there it will stay pretty much permanently. It’s so nice to hear. The kids like to experiment with wiggling the chimes in their pockets, like the boy in the photo. Some of them are convinced that they can get the chimes out.

In the past we've used various metal things attached to the fence for music, and I'm assuming we'll continue to do that. If I ever get a picture, I'll post it. Random metal items and then sticks to bang them with is always a good idea for outside. Kid-made music beats even the nicest thing played on the boom box.

Mentos and Diet Coke

My husband thinks this is an urban myth, but it’s totally true.  You CAN make a geyser by dropping Mentos into a Diet Coke bottle.  This picture is from our alumni camp.  What you can’t appreciate are the chants of, “Men-tos!  Men-tos!” from the kids watching.

The activity is simple enough.  Put a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke on a stable surface so it won’t fall over when the geyser shoots.  Open it.  Then, as fast as you can, drop in as many mint Mentos (not the kind with the candy coating) as you can.  We found that 9 was about as many as we could do with our hands.  The reaction is so fast that the tenth piece of candy flies up with the geyser.

This is a great opportunity to try things with the kids.  Let them make suggestions and act on them if you can.  How many Mentos is optimal?  Will things other than Diet Coke work?  (Yes, they will, but you don’t get a really high geyser, so come prepared with sparkling water, regular Coke, and other things you think the kids might ask for.)  What about different kinds of Mentos?  (This doesn’t work, by the way.)  Why does this work, anyway?  And of course, you should let the kids taste the Diet Coke afterwards.  Is it any different in taste or amount of bubbles?  Why?

Our school owns one of those geyser tubes and we like to use it because it lets you drop the Mentos in nearly simultaneously with the little pin plus the nozzle makes the geyser shoot straight up.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it!  The supply room is being reorganized and some things just aren’t findable right now.  But as you can see, you don’t really need that tube.  It’s just for added fun.

Dot Painters

Dot painters come by various names: bingo markers, do-a-dots, and dotters, among others. They are simple but can help kids explore a new tool for painting.

Adults usually restrict themselves to dotting with dot painters. But young children don’t have this preconception about what they’re for. They typically drag them like brushes across the page until they see someone else banging them. The child in this picture figured out how to squeeze the bottle so hard the paint dribbled out and then waved the bottle around to make splashes. Luckily Mom knew to dress her child in an old shirt for school, even if it WAS white!

Child often pound so hard that the dots look more like splashes. If you haven’t tried it, do! It’s fun and for adults it’s a little like therapy. Children also like to try to peel the pads off the top. Peeling is one of those things I redirect from since once that top is off you can’t put it back on effectively.

I use dot painters at the easel and on a table for different perspectives. Changing the angle of something makes it a slightly different experience. Dot painters are great to take outside because it’s really easy to clean mulch and dirt off them, which you can’t say for many kinds of brushes.

We have two kinds of dot painters at school. Some are refillable and some are not. The refillable ones take awhile to get the paint from the bottle into the pad, but it’s nice to be able to select your own colors or let the children pick. The non-refillable ones seem to work a little better, but your color choices are limited and sometimes the bottles can’t be reused for anything, which is wasteful. Refill dot painters with liquid watercolor or food coloring mixed with water.

A note of caution: some bingo markers are NOT nontoxic and washable. Buy dotters labeled for use with children.

Why Yes, We Have Indoor Running Water

We often think of the sensory table as holding objects that the children manipulate but are unchanging without the children present.  If you’ve got a 2-year-old in your life you know they are fascinated by running water.  One option is to let them play in the sink.  But sometimes that’s not desirable or you’re looking for something a little different.  So why not add a little running water to your sensory table?

Here I’ve moved our sensory table to be nearer to the sink than it normally is.  We have guttering outside in the sand areas so kids can build water paths, so we cleaned some off and used duct tape to attach it to our classroom faucet.  We tried propping it up, but the kids kept knocking it over when they tried to put things in it.  Our classroom is lucky enough to have a second sink nearby, so we were still able to easily keep hands clean while we had our gutter.

Along with typical water stuff we also supplied different kinds of floating and sinking balls that they could roll down the gutter.  They tried putting just about everything small that was in the room (not just balls) down the gutter and got a good sense of what would work and what wouldn’t.  We talked about floating, sinking, rolling, sliding, friction, size, and weight, among other things.

The tricky thing with this setup is the drain.  We had to keep an eye on the water level to make sure that it got drained frequently.  If you’re doing this outside with a hose, just set your drain to let water out as the water comes in.  Otherwise, an adult with a bucket has to be on standby most of the time.  The kids enjoyed helping to drain the table, so we never reached overflow.  I also recommend keeping the water flow small.  If you’re outside, go for a higher flow or let the kids control the flow.

If you’re at home, rig up something that goes from your sink to somewhere else, maybe the floor with some towels.  You can use a small hose, some gutter, or plastic tubing.  Outside is probably the best place for home water play, but the tub is a viable option as well though not as novel.

Taking Things Outside

As I’ve said, we like to go outside whenever possible.  We sometimes leave our classroom door open so kids can wander in and out to the play yard at will.  When we do that we move some of our usual indoor things outside.

Here is a crayon setup from earlier in the year.  With the twos I often secure paper down so they don’t have to worry about it moving while they work with things that have some resistance, like crayons.  As they get better at it I remove the tape or whatever I’m using to secure the paper down.  This is a picture of a little table that can be flipped over to make a seesaw.  I’ve taped the paper down.  There are actually several layers of paper so I can pull them off as needed without taping down more paper while children are waiting.  At the beginning of the year the children aren’t as attached to the product as they become over the course of the year, so multiple children worked on this piece before someone was ready for a fresh piece of paper.

The picture on the right is a nice musical instrument the music teacher brought outside.  It’s closely related to the xylophone, but darn it all if I can’t remember what its true name is.  Anyway, this is not an outdoor instrument.  It has to be pulled back inside at the end of the day.  The children are used to seeing it in our gross motor room, so having it outside is a real treat.  I took this picture before school started.  I don’t think it sat idle for more than a few minutes all morning. 

In addition to moving things like this outside, we also try to have regular classroom things outside.  In the toddler yard we added a small play kitchen.  For the older children there are various large building toys.  We bring books outside and leave them on blankets or benches.  Obviously, our music teacher comes outside and brings all her cart full of instruments with her.  All of this is in addition to our permanent outdoor offerings, like sand and water (and associated toys), and play structures.  We try very hard to make the outdoors a true extension of our indoor classrooms.

What I want you to notice is that we aren’t afraid to take our indoors out whenever possible.  There are some things that don’t go outside, like our classroom shopping cart, because we’ve learned from painful experience that some of those things just can’t endure the use they’ll get outside.  But we push the limits wherever possible and accept that some things may get used up.

Outdoor Painting on Plexiglass

The weather is getting very nice here and that makes me move everyone outside.  We like to take many of our indoor activities to the play yard when it's nice, but sometimes it's nice to have a little specialized equipment.

This first picture is a plexiglass wall that divides a small deck that stretches between the toddler yard and the 3s/4s yard (we often leave the gate open between them, so this distinction is really in the minds of the teachers only).  It can be painted on from either side.  It's starting to get a little weathered and cloudy, but you can still see through it.  The nice thing is that it's two activities in one.  The kids can paint first, and then clean it off.  We've used brushed with water, sponges, the hose, and wet towels to wash it off, but I'm sure you could think of some other ideas.

Another nice thing to have is a plexiglass easel.  The nice thing about it is that you can move it around, unlike the wall.  We also bring our regular easels out, but we have just one of these see-through ones and it's always a hit.  Maybe the fun is in painting directly on the easel with no paper or that you can see what the other person is doing on the side at the same time.  I don't know, but it's cool.  Sometimes I think the adults are more taken with it than the kids are!