cooool.....

Have any of you been to www.stevespanglerscience.com ?? I love his stuff and got a bunch at conference this year. These are polymer crystals that mysteriously grow into large gel-like material when added to water. We added water to the colored crystals then took pictures to document the growing process.....

Some of the comments this morning were

"It looks like ice"

"It's red ice!"

"But it's not cold like ice is cold"

"It feels like Jello"

"is it jello?"

So we talked and confered and discovered....then we blended. Each child will come home with a little vile of different colored crystals. Talk together about what happens to the colors....eventually it will become one color....

We are also watching what happens in class....coooool!!!

bunnies, string, and fire.....

Awww....I know, cute!

The other day I was putting some string away and Quinn said in the cutest little boy voice he could find; "Annie, can I have a piece of that string?" Sure Quinn, I said...and the imagination began.

Of course they asked Quinn where he got the string and the ripple effect had begun....Everyone 'needed' string...even the 15 month old.

Bryan and Quinn were working hard and pretty soon they were 'fishing'. They 'built' fishing poles and fished. I am not sure what the chairs had to do with it all...but they were catching some cool stuff!

Here, they are casting their hooks! Later...they needed a fire. To cook the fish of course...so I headed to the closet of odds and ends and got some red tissue paper. "Great!" Bryan said..."This is just what we needed!" Bryan started building his fire.It's a hot one and more wood was needed!Sooo...where there is fire, there is the need for people to put the fire out and who better than the local firefighters.

I love when play is an all day thing. We started out with string and ended with firetrucks....with a whole lot of learning (via, language and risk taking) in between!!Over in the science area I added some big circle mirrors and plastic 'fall' items including leaves, pumpkins, and nuts. They are great sorting items. Loralei especially loves it over here and has a fascination with the sparkely things...the mirrors especially. She uses the mirrors alot...and yes, they do break. One actually broke today, but we just picked it up carefully and threw it away. She now knows you can not kneel on the mirror....we do not let the babies in this part of the room :)

Around the room....

This is the area of our room we call the 'Messy' room. This is where we paint. We have painting, a sensory bin, the light table/craft table, the big blue table, the writing table, the playdough table, and the science area. We just addded snails...I will post that in a bit. On the big blue table we are painting with baby calf nipples. I got the idea at conference and purchased them at the Grange...which is our local farm store.

In the sensory bin we have flax seed. I also got this at the Grange. If you haven't used this before it is very cool to the touch. Later you can try adding oil or water for a totally different experience. We added silver tins and cups and a bunch of plastic Spiders. And yes....I use food. Kids do not get confused about playing with food and eating it. I remember playing with Oatmeal as a kid and I never associated it with the Oatmeal that I ate. I certainly never ate dry Oatmeal....or uncooked rice, or uncooked colored rice or noodles or flax seed. ewww. So yes, we play with food...it's cool.

My kiddos LOVE magnets. We keep them out or have them easily accessable at all times. These are big black magnet sheets with little containers, colored block magnets, clear colored magnet rim pieces, and chain. The chain is especially versitile and they love it!

The days following a Costco run are always good for some seriouse box play. I had 3 large produce boxes and these guys are surfing!! Yup surfing. Bryan has the stance down good.....

and then they needed to lay down and paddle. Loralie is doing the full crawl stroke!Our little ones LOVE to read! Yes, it is upside down, but she is chatting away about apples. The kids love to build and lately we have been asking them if they want to draw what they build. YES! They do, and Bryan is very careful to make sure that all his blocks are represented. The kids are practicing and learning good pencil control and this is also helping with eye hand coordination. Here is Addy using some of the materials that were on the Magnet boards. She liked to do this on the blue table. She is patterning and creating shapes.....Korina and I cleaned out one of my 'sheet' closets. Oh boy did the kids have a good time with all the unwanted sheets. We used clothes pins to pin everything together to make a fort. Here we have corn painting...This is the decorative corn that you can buy at the grocery store. Sometimes they get their hands painty just so they can wash them! :)These two were up here for a good amount of time. They are standing on one of the benches. I am not sure why they didn't just pull down the containers...but it was a great place for them to play with their horses/animals. We made this building 'blocks' using old baby formula containers. I added colored paper and pictures of the kids or animals and then put contact paper over them. They can build these up taller than themselves...and they make a LOUD noise when they fall...that is the most important part.

Baggie Books

The other night in class I learned about "baggie books" This is probably the coolest and easiest thing I have learned about in a long time. This is what you need....Baggies, and pick the sandwhich baggies. I tried to get the bigger size and they all have writing on the baggie so you can add a date. You want to make sure there is no writing on the baggie. Cardstock cut to a tad smaller than the baggie. Then you can use anything you want to decorate the pages. I used the foam pieces and pictures. I like the foam pieces because they are raised up and it gives the children a different sense to 'read' the book to. You will need a stapler to staple the edges and some thick tape. I used different colors of duct tape.

I placed the photos on the cut to size paper.

I then added words, pictures, and the foam stickers. I placed the pages into the baggies and stapled the edge. Make sure the opening to the bag is to the left of the page....the zipper opening is to go where the binding goes.

Once you staple, cover the edge with duct tape. I love the colors!

I put about 3 or 4 layers. Sometimes the staples don't close all the way so the tape helps cover the pointy part of the staples. Then cut off the edge that hangs over the top of the book.Here are a few pages of another book I made. By the way....Wellington is our friend from England. We are doing a pen pal deal with the 'Cheeky Monkey' daycare. I still have another book to make. We swapped out stuffed animals and then we take pictures of the different places the animals went and send a book so the kiddos can see different places through the animals!! Cool huh? Our guy that is in England is named Washington and she has taken him to Egypt!!! I will post pics of that book when it arrives.

staying cool outside....

It's been in the high 80's low 90's here in Bellevue and it makes for a very uncomfortable afternoon. The best way to beat this is to add water. Super messy, but very needed and welcomed! They were throwing water at each and watering plants and themselves :) There are quite a few pictures here and are of no great meaning, other than pure joy. Enjoy mamas and papas! Have a super weekend!!