colors

We started out with White, Red, Blue, and Yellow.......
Then we mixed them. Look through the Oct. Room pics to see what happend!

Soda and Vinegar....yup, again.....

This happens to be one of Quincys favorite activities so when Korina and I went to Costco we decided to stalk up!!""Hey, Blue and Red make Purple Annie!!" How do you know Quinn? "Because I squirt Blue and I squirt Red and when they mix together in the river it makes purple!" Wow Quinn, so when Blue and Red mix together they make purple. You are right!!I love this little chair the girls are sitting on. I taped 2 little wooden chairs together to make a 'friends' chair. It works! They love to sit together and it creates a whole new set of challenges for them to figure out.And Ali....she stayed here until lunch time. She however, changed her science activity up a bit...which is what you are supposed to do right?!! Rather than squirt all her colored vinegar onto the baking soda, she squirted just enough to get it wet and then started making and 'cooking' rolls and such. I never knew this activity could make a solid play medium...thank you for teaching me something new today Ali!!!

Science area....as promised

This is our science area. It is in the back left corner of the 'messy room'. The kids love to come hang out here...which of course makes me very happy. For the longest time I just had random sciency stuff around the room. Now it is mostly in this one area and easier to look at, find, and put away! I just added the lights because it gets a little dark back here. Oh, and one thing I didn't add a picture of is the color bottles on the window sill....These are the only things the kids are not allowed to get down because they are antique glass jars, but they like looking at them. I have more in the block area that are plastic and they get to play with those ones which is probably why they don't seem to bother these ones.

The mirrors are a big hit. sometimes they arrange them in a design and sometimes they use them as mirrors. One day Bryan was using them with the geo blocks and seeing the mirrored image of his creation. Yes, they do break...but that is all part of the process.

Korina has been making crystals with the kids....they are growing very nicely. we also have dead beetles and snails for the kids to look at under the magnafying glasses. Those are my teeth!!! minus the big chip in the front. :)Looking up.....Here is the side with the snake.....These are little counters I found at Michaels....we need to get some spring and valentiney ones!! these are fall leaves and pumpkins....they sort and match these using the little baskets.A basket of shiney jewles, a basket of rocks, and small baskets to sort them all with.Purses and keys......Science books....things that we actually have!!!This is what is on the other side....These are baby food jars with holes in the tops and items to smell inside. We have lavender, garlic, basil, and cinnimon....we need to add a few more. a box of magnafying glasses...These geo blocks are a favorite. We used to just have a big bucket of them and then I saw somewhere they did this and I loved it. It looks nice and it helps with sorting skills!!Wood pieces can be stacked and counted. How high?? two small ones = a larger one......I got these at conference. They are shakers and make a nice sound without being too overwhelming!!

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 :)

Quinn

Some of you may think 'oh my gosh, no way'....some may think 'very cool!'....I think 'so much learning is going on right here', not to mention Quinn is very engaged, calm, quiet, lovely, and green. We did this with the older kids and it lasted about 15-20 minutes. They used up stuff quickly and got a little invested, but not like Quinn. Our lil Quinn was here for over an hour!! What we had here were mounds of baking soda in a tin container and baby food jars with yellow and blue vinegar with pipettes.

It started out like this.....

Mixing blue and yellow together......

He is also working on his fine motor skills with the pipettes....and finding out what happens when blue and yellow are mixed together, and what happens when you add vinegar to baking soda, and 'what is that funny smell anyway?'....vinegar

Hmmmm, what would happen if I put it up here on my arm? And not only is he watching it fall from his arm in different patterns, but when it drys it leaves a different pasty feel on your hand that cracks and peels...he liked that too!

Here he is pulling it up from the bottom and dripping it back in off his fingers, because it is watery on top and gooey on the bottom.....Don't EVER let anyone tell you this little one is ADD cuz he's not! You just need to find what interests him! :)