Skip to main content

Ice Excavating

We spent the week learning about the different seasons with Mother Goose Time. There was definitely a heavier focus on Autumn for us since that is what we are currently experiencing. We have done so much leaf crafts and baking. Last weekend we went apple picking and this weekend we are going to a pumpkin farm. It has been getting colder here and winter is definitely letting us know that it is just around the corner. It was also nice to take a day out of the week to focus on the warmer seasons and help us remember that spring and summer will be coming back. We read so many great books snuggled up under warm blankets, and we did some great art all while having the delicious smells of something we baked that day to comfort us.

I think our favorite activity this week was another of the STEAM stations that are found in the beginning of the Teacher Guide. So far this month Mother Goose Time has really been bringing a lot of fun with their STEAM stations. This one was called Icy Artic Animal. A few days before I wanted to do this activity I selected several of my kids little animal figurines and froze them in containers. We didn't have any arctic animals so ours was Icy Jungle Animals, but whatever you have laying around works. When I brought out the blocks of ice and gave them to my kids they were very surprised.

 

I gave them little bowls of hot water, salt, a little wooden hammer and chisel that I had left over from a bug dig kit my son got as a gift (I knew someday I might need those again), a pipette, and a paintbrush. I told them that they had to rescue their animals out of the ice and that they could use those items however they wanted to help them. They had so much fun, even my daughter loved this. It was so fun watching them try different things to see what would melt the ice fastest. My son got right to work, he dumped hot water on the block of ice, then tried covering it with salt, then he used the brush which didn't have the results he was looking for so he used the pipette. 





He found that layering on the salt and then using the pipette to squeeze water around the edges of the animal worked really fast and he was able to rescue his animal pretty quickly. 


My daughter took her time with hers, she was really savoring the fun. She tried different ways to melt the ice as well but with less urgency. It was really fun to watch them come up with different ways to use the materials, also I loved that there was some collaboration between them as well. They told each other their ideas and shared what worked and didn't work. They even left their little stations to go over to see the others work and talk about their findings. And this all happened on its own. I just set out the materials and gave a little instruction on what the activity was about and then I sat back and watched. I also acted as assistant and resupplied hot water and salt as needed. I love projects that bring them together and make them work together to find a solution. I feel like since the weather has been cooler and its been gloomy lately they have been bickering a lot. This was a perfect activity to get them working together. There was no fighting at all during this. Only happiness, helpfulness, and learning through play. When they asked me if they cold do it again I said go find the next animal you want to save next! I now have a spider and a frog freezing in my freezer. I will keep this idea in my mind and use it again on a rainy cold indoor day. 




*Mother Goose Time has generously provided this curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning About Pond Plants

Last week we learned all about the plants that grow in and around ponds with Mother Goose Time . It was  a lot of fun because we live near several ponds and we have a lake right out in our backyard. We learned about Submerged pond plants, bog plants, emergent pond plants, floating pond plants, and algae. We were lucky because we got to go out and see a lot of the plants that we leaned about. The suggested stories that went with this week were also very helpful and gave us a lot of information about the different kinds of pond plants. I actually learned a lot about pond plants! Did you know that submerged pond plants are a major source of oxygen in the pond, or that cattails are edible, and there are different zones in a pond. Our favorite day was the day we spent learning about floating pond plants. We spent our day making mini ponds, doing a root experiment, and investigating things that float. We also decided to go on a pond walk at the end of the day to loo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Filling in the Gaps

This is our second month using the  Mother Goose Time More Math and More Literacy workbooks. I have really noticed a change in my 4 year old son since using these workbooks. He will be 5 in just a few more months and I thought that it might benefit him to have a little more in the way of practice pages and reinforcement so when I was given the opportunity to try these out I jumped on it. He was really excited to have his own workbook and I noticed that he started to try a little harder to do his work. I focused on the More Math workbook this month because I already know he needs work on his letters and letter sounds. I was curious about his math skills. He is stronger in his math skills right now and I wanted to find out what areas needed more reinforcement and what areas are pretty much mastered. The pages in the workbook go along with the months theme and have great pictures. They are fun and inviting and he feels like he is doing big boy work, which he is so its win...
Post a Comment
Read more

All About Me!

We started off our new school year by learning about ourselves. Septembers  Mother Goose Time theme is called My Amazing Body and it includes learning about body parts, five senses, staying healthy, and clothing. We had so much fun learning about or bodies this week, we learned about our head, arms, legs, hands, and feet. Some of our favorite activities of the week included working on shapes, patterns and sorting. We used the included tangrams to problem solve ways to fit the shapes onto the shape Design Mats. Some of the designs required some perseverance to get them to fit together perfectly. We were also given a bag of buttons and laces this month. We used these to fill in the pattern guides and we used them to practice sorting by shapes and color. He has really taken a liking to patters lately and really enjoyed this activity. We also spent some time with our theme poster every morning. We used the labels to label our little kids on the poster. The day we lea...
Post a Comment
Read more