What's Inside?

Last week the children were very interested in seeing what they had each brought for snack. There were some great conversations happening at the snack centre about what the food looked like, smelled like, and tasted like.

 

Today I brought in some different kinds of squash. I wanted to extend the children's interests and thought this would be an engaging way to do so.

 

First we passed the different squash around the carpet. The children were encouraged to use many senses to explore; what did the squash feel like (exploring textures), how heavy was it (exploring measurement), how did it look (noting similarities and differences). This was also a good activity to reinforce turn taking.

During playtime the children were invited to explore the inside of the squash. This lead to many interesting math discussions - equality (2 halves of a squash are the same as 1 whole), estimation and counting (how many seeds are inside), measurement (which squash is biggest? which has the biggest seeds?) and shape (some squash are round and some are not). The children also practiced their fine motor skills as they used the tweezers to pick the seeds out. This took a lot of patience and perseverance because the seeds were slippery and stuck in the squash guts!

 

 

Families we are hoping to cook some squash for the children to taste. If you have any you are able to donate to our room, we would appreciate it! Also, if you are interested in volunteering to help with this activity, please let us know! Thank you!

Exploring Spring Bulbs

We recycled the potted spring flowers from our still life art into an exploration of bulbs and root systems today. Children were invited to use tools like tweezers and magnifying glasses to gently untangle the roots and bulbs from the soil. 

There was some interesting talk as children used specialized vocabulary to describe their process and observations and compared the bulbs to each other. They noticed that different bulbs had various sizes, shapes and colours of bulbs and roots. 

Exploring Sunflowers

Over the summer we grew a large striped sunflower plant in our garden. After the seeds had developed and the flower wilted, we dried out the head of the plant in our house. This week I thought it would be fun to let the kids explore the seeds a little further.

Using tweezers I encouraged them to dissect the plant, one seed at a time. While they did this we discussed how plants have a life cycle (seed to plant to seed) and how our food comes from plants.

Using the tweezers also helped my children develop good fine motor control - a great skill especially for Caleb as he practices his pincher grasp, which is essential for writing skills later on.

It was interesting to see what the sunflower looked like as the seeds were removed. Lots of conversation occurred as we described the way the sunflower looked!

Once we were done picking seeds we added them (along with the sunflower head and remaining seeds) to our platform bird feeder.

It didn't take long for some hungry visitors to discover the new treats awaiting them!