What are these?

What are these little balls?

We passed them around circle to explore up close. 

We placed them in shallow trays with water so that we could observe them up close. 

They began to change. 

The children noticed that the balls started to slowly grow in the water. They used rich vocabulary to describe their observations - fragile, bumpy, squishy, slippery - and played very carefully as the balls continued to change. 

We used scientific tools to help us gather more information. 

The clear ones were so hard to see and we noticed that as the balls grew they became bumpy!

Can you guess what they are?

Manipulating Catapults

Mini catapults made of clothespins and a wood block are one of our favourite inventions! We introduced them early last year, so our current SKs are quite skilled at manipulating them. We put them out at the science and math area last week in hopes they would pique our JK's interests as well.

It was really interesting to watch the children experiment with how to best manipulate the catapults. In the following video you can see the teamwork involved as the children work together to stabilize the catapult.

Once the skill of how to use them is mastered, many children work on their control and technique. Aiming the chips into bowls was a favourite activity and great for strengthening fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. 

Our goal is to encourage the children to assign points for getting chips in the bowls. This will add a math element to an already very exciting activity!

Setting up our Spy Headquarters

The children were so excited to set up the spy headquarters today! They helped to quickly clear out the chocolate factory and before I even had a chance to help them set up the space, had begun to use some of the neat items we had for the new center.  We can't wait to add more math and literacy activities to this play area in order to advance the learning taking place!

Checking out some of our neat gadgets.

Filling out their spy badges, complete with a code name and fingerprint.

Helping to set up the center.

Trying on some of our secret disguises.

More spy stuff - binoculars and spy bags.

Dressed up and on the hunt for clues.

Back at the headquarters working the phone.

Marble Mazes

We encourage our children to do a lot of exploration with various materials in our classroom. After providing an opportunity for them to explore store-bought marble mazes yesterday, the children spent some time today creating their own marble obstacles.

Many children were fascinated with the complicated mazes, spending much of their time maneouvering the marble through the maze and traps until they reached the end of the game. Some spent their whole play time with this game - by themselves or with a friend cheering them on.

Today we placed a variety of materials out for the children - paper tubes, sticky tack, trays, and marbles. The children were invited to use the sticky tack to place the tubes in various spots on the trays. The nature of the sticky tack allows it to be reused numerous times which means that if a child was unhappy with how the marble maze has been created they can try again. This proved to be a very popular center with many children. Obstacles were created and tested multiple times. Mr. Mills even stopped by!

It was interesting to see the children experimenting with the materials. The following picture shows a child wanting to create a ramp-like tunnel for the marble to travel down. She realized that there was more support for the tube if she placed it on top of the corner of the box instead of just a side.

The children got tricky and started exploring what would happen if they used multiple marbles in the maze. One child put sticky tack inside the tubes to act as a secret trap for the marbles that he had to maneouver around. Their ideas were amazing and this activity was great for promoting the building of student hand-eye coordination. In the afternoon the children built scaffolding for their ramps so the tubes could be placed high above the tray.

And of course there's always a little bit of silliness thrown into any of our activities!

What a great activity to get our children exploring and experimenting with various classroom materials. This might be an activity that you want to do together with your child at home. Thank you to Mrs. Bombadier for a great idea!

Coloured Salt Artwork

We made some interesting salt art today. The children created designs on black paper using glue sticks.

Once the glue designs were created the children coated them with fine table salt, taking care to shake off any extra. Using pipettes and coloured water (blue, yellow, and red) the children dropped colour onto the salt designs.  They realized through personal investigations that the salt drew the water towards it, so if they placed just one drop of colour into the middle of the salt, the colour would slowly spread to a large area around the drop. The colours mixed into beautiful designs! Some children experimented with using two droppers at once so that new colours were created. (Thank you to Mrs. Freeman for a great idea!)

Some of the finished pieces included:

Because of the nature of the salt, when your child brings this art home much may have fallen off the paper. Although this was an art activity, we were more interested in the experince and potential for investigation it provided. Why don't you ask your child to explain how (s)he made this artwork and what the salt and water did when it comes home?