Create and Learn!

Our school friends have been expressing their creativity in so many ways!  It's amazing to see them build their brains in SOOO many wonderful ways!  One subject we talked about was "shades."  We started with blue paint, and then explored what happened when we added black and/or white paint to the blue.  We talked about how the blue would get darker, or lighter, but didn't change into a different color really.  Dark blue and light blue are shades of blue.  Each masterpiece of blue shades was truly a masterpiece!

 

We used balls and ramps to create different tracks.  It was so fun and educational to explore what happened when we changed the angle of the ramp by raising or lowering the end of the ramps.  The balls speed would change and we found natural ways to talk about force, gravity, height, and distance.

     

But sometimes the ramps made dog homes too.  :) Because open ended materials are useful that way!  Why not?

Our Explore Table has been filled with fuzzy sticks, dry noodles, and colanders.  We navigated fuzzy sticks through the holes, in and out, to make silly hats!

Friend "Alarm Clock" wondered why sometimes you could see the fuzzy sticks and sometimes you couldn't.  We noticed that if we threaded the fuzzy sticks from the outside of the bowl, versus the inside, the fuzzy stick would poke out the way she wanted.

Play offers so many opportunities for young children to talk about "big" ideas from art and physics, and practice "big" skills like threading and weaving.  It's no wonder that play is one of the fastest ways to learn new information and skills for children!

This Road was Built in a Day, and Another One on the Next

In February, we have been learning about various careers.  Part of our work has been using these giant wooden blocks to build... roads, castles, hospitals... whatever the children imagine!

We have talked about what bulldozers, cement mixers, and dump trucks are useful for.

We have tested the durability of our structures.

We have revised and rebuilt in true engineering and constructing form!

We have even worked in a small world construction site moving rocks, logs, and dirt (beans).

We honed our fine motor skills by learning how to hold a nail (golf tee) and hammer.

It wasn't easy, and took a lot of practice.  We persisted and learned something new!

Friend "Sandwich" even learned how to use the claw side of the hammer to remove his nails!  What a thorough introduction of construction, carpentry, and engineering.  More careers to come...

Why is it Winter? SPACE holds the answer!

In following Friend "Sandwich's" zest for Space learning, we built a unit all about space!  And we connected it with our prior unit about winter.  Winter on Earth looks cold and bare.  Trees are sleeping and their leaves have fallen, sometimes it snows, and we have to wear extra clothes to keep warm.  Winter in space looks like Earth tilting, or leaning, away from the Sun's warmth.

We have worked in our Explore table (pictured above) to learn names of planets, "catch stars," and taking samples of space rocks with "rovers."

We built, and rebuilt, our own rovers.  Their job is to take pictures, rock samples, and other information while exploring the moon or Mars.  We read about rovers in a book, and then used our imaginations to take ours on space expeditions.

At the Alone Table, we used stars to make pictures, or constellations.  We also had a Galaxy bottle to shake up and watch the shooting stars.

This bottle is 1/2 mineral oil, purple and blue glitter, and 1/2 water with blue and red dye.  Shake it up and watch the magic happen!

Space is art-mazing!  We used foil, star stickers, and glue to make these space pictures.  Our dialogue went beyond the practical process of the art (peeling stickers, squeezing glue, ripping or crunching foil): we discussed nebulae where stars are born, asteroids "the space rocks," and constellations.

Astronomy is such a vast topic, and there is so much to do with preschoolers on the subject!  Winter is a perfect time to study space.

Waffles Anyone?

When Baby "E" turned one, she was given this little waffle block set with animals.  She loves carrying around the animals, but the school friends have loved using the waffles as building materials.  They are amazing!  Easy to use, conducive to imaginative play, and SO fun!

At "E's" birthday party, the school friends opened the box and said, "Wow!  These are just like the blocks in your yard but tiny!"  So true!  But also, these have more kinds of shapes, including circles and rods, that are cleverly planned out to be compatible with the other pieces.

Today, Friend "Sandwich" literally worked to make this "playground" for 30 minutes.  He designed it to be an obstacle course for the people included with the toy.  He assigned voices to his figures, and helped them "race" through the obstacle course.  Then he decided it would be a "video game" where he held the pretend controller to push imaginary buttons, and Ms. Harmony guided the players through the course where they received medals at the end.

We had ladders to climb, merry-go-rounds to spin, slides to descend, climbers to leap on and off of, and more.  It was truly amazing to spend a solid 30 minutes on a single plan... and the only reason we stopped working on this was because it was time to carry on with the day.  I'd say this was waffles for the win!

Pipes Project

Friend "Sandwich" engaged with these pieces of pipe for quite awhile today.  After identifying these new toys in the Toy and Puzzle Area during Greeting Time, he knew exactly what he wanted to do when it was Work Time!  His plan was to go and work with pipes.  He figured out how to connect them on his own.

We talked about how pipes bring water to our homes, like the kitchen sink, bathtubs, toilets, and even the garden hoses.

We used these pictures during Recall Time to invite Friend "Sandwich" to tell his friends about his work.  After completing his pipes project, he said, "Ta-da!  Come take a picture!"  During Recall Time he told us about how this pipe system is for the sprinklers.

Cool engineering brain right?!

Exploring Desert Life

The desert is near and dear for Ms. Harmony as she grew up in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona!  She shared just a bit of this experience with the school friends in late July this year.

In studying reptiles, we talked about these animals having scaly bodies like fish... but they are different because they don't have any gills!  They don't live in the water.  We painted on the bubble wrap-covered easel and stamped papers shaped like snakes on the wet paint.

Friend "Hammer" has been wanting to do Marble Works all summer!  We made snake-slides for our marbles and it was so neat to send marbles down these twists and turns.  The school friends were given a few pieces of track at a time and asked to connect them and see how the marbles moved through the channels.  They worked through the trial and error process of learning about gravity, obstacles, gaps, slopes, and more.

In the desert, there are animals that can be hot and thirsty because it doesn't rain very much.  Saguaro cacti are plants that are ONLY found in the Sonoran Desert of the southwest.  They are covered in prickly spines to protect them from hungry animals, but there are some animals who build homes in the cacti anyways.  :)  After reading some books with real pictures of saguaros, prickly pear, and organ pipe cacti, we used play-doh and half-toothpicks to make our own cacti.  Together, it made an adorable cactus garden.

Spring STEAM

The year is chugging right along!  We have welcomed Spring at Harmony's House with STEAM!

What is STEAM?  STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology/Tools, Engineering, Art, and Math.  This is a summary of the STEAM opportunities that the students of Harmony's House have experienced during their studies of Spring. 

(While so many of these activities could fall into a few STEAM areas, Ms. Harmony has tried to evenly assign the lessons across the subject areas.)

SCIENCE-
Rain in Turtle Town:  In the Explore Table, the school friends learned about meteorology (clouds and rain) with cups poked with holes, adhesive and cohesive properties of water (the blocks stick to one another and to the sides of the Explore Table when they are wet), balance, and buoyancy.  It was very challenging to build boats and buildings for the turtles because the foam blocks float on the water, but the turtles sink, and everything is differently weighted based on size and shape.  There was so much dialogue happening here about science:  "Why do the blocks stick together?"  "I think I need to build on something flat."  "How can I make a tunnel?"  "The turtles are sinking!"  "It's raining!  Why is the water falling out?"

Water Cycle Experiment:  To better understand how water moves between the Earth's surface and its atmosphere, we did this hands-on simulation of the water cycle.  After reading two nonfiction books about clouds and watersheds in Circle Time, the children knew that clouds were made of water and ice, clouds rain or snow on mountains, and water/snowmelt runs down into streams, rivers, lakes, and eventually the ocean.  But how does it get back into the air?  In our simulation, we used a sponge to represent a cloud.  When full of water, it began to precipitate (drip) onto the Earth (tub of water).  Finally, we used a small cup to help the water evaporate up into the clouds.  After pouring small amounts of water into the cloud/sponge, it became saturated and was ready to rain again.  The children LOVED squeezing the cloud forcefully so that it made a rainstorm.  One child noticed that after the big rush of rain, the sponge still dripped a bit and remarked, "Look it's sprinkling after the storm!"

Animal Life:  Birds are building nests to prepare for their young.  Many animals have babies in the springtime when the weather is warming up and food becomes more abundant.  This Small Group activity explains how we made our own bird nests after studying and describing real nests.

Plant Anatomy and Physiology:  Doing a plant dissection with children is super fun and informative.  They ask great questions, and learn the names and functions of the plant parts in a hands -on way!  Read this post to find out more about this project.

TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS-

Popcorn Popping:  In Circle Time, we used an air popper to replicate the Earth's environment during springtime.  Outside, the Sun shines on our part of the world and warms up the air.  More sunny days, and longer sunny days, make the weather warm.  We have noticed that flowers are popping out on trees all over the place now that Spring is here!  Like the real weather outside, the popper warmed the air, and the seeds that we "planted," until they popped!  The yummy popcorn looked just like the flowers on the trees!

Wind Socks:  When studying Spring weather, we learned that air moves when it heats up or cools down.  Wind also blows with direction.  Using a wind sock can help a person know which way the wind is blowing.  We made our own wind socks and used them outside to help us visualize the wind's movements.

ENGINEERING-

Flower Gardens:  We used Gears! Gears! Gears! to "grow flowers" for Spring.  Ms. Harmony gave the students a few materials at a time so that the children had an opportunity to figure out how the gears worked, which accessory pieces connected to which, and how to build vertically as well as horizontally.  Each child explored the gears at his/her own pace and used the materials in different ways.  It was exciting to hear the change from "I NEED help!" to "I did it!" when they figured out how to connect, turn, and build.  

Flower Garden Amusement Park:  One day during Work Time, the children came back to the Gears and planned to make a flower park for the CareBears and animals.  They connected all these gears, "planted flower," and put the animals on top.  When the gears began to turn, the animals would spin around and around with them!  It was amazing!

ART-  
Black and White Color Mixing:  The children were given a bit of black and white paint and asked to predict what color they would get when these colors were mixed together.  One child guessed grey, while another thought it would be blue.  We then proceeded to mix the two colors on the "sky" and they discovered that the blue paper would show through where the paint was thin.  They also noticed that when you add more black, the paint was darker.  White paint made the mixture lighter.  The children used varying shades of grey to make rainclouds.

Spray Art and Lightning:  To create these awesome art pieces, we used spray bottles to make it "rain" at the art easel!  After the "rain" was dry, the children were offered cotton balls and lightning bolts.  They enjoyed gluing them onto the paintings to create thunderstorms!

Rainbows:  When light shines through water, it bounces around and separates into different colors.  We applied colored streamers to Contact paper and then hung it in the window to see the light shine through!  It made beautiful stained glass windows for us.

Tree Sculptures:  At the Alone Table, the children were invited to use these "branches, leaves, and fruit" to design and build a tree sculpture.  Each child's tree was unique depending on whether they wanted to sculpt with all the branches, just a few, lots of fruit or leaves...  However it ended up, the tree sculptures were beautiful to behold.

MATH-
Building with Shapes:  In a previous blog post, these rainbow blocks were discussed as a learning opportunity for playing with light, colors, and shadows.  They also allowed the children to dialogue about patterns and shapes.  Some of the children's language included, "Give me a rectangle."  "Let's make a pattern in the wall.  Square, rectangle, square, rectangle.  That's a pattern."  "We are out of [insert shape], what should we use next?"

On a different day, the children looked at the shapes to make a stained glass window for the floor.

Numbers in the Frog Pond: The Explore Table had numbered lily pads for the frogs.  Some children used the lily pads as places for sorting rather than quantifying.  Others looked for the lily pads that had the biggest number because they wanted to have the most frogs.  Either way, this Explore Table led to a variety of math conversations!