Make Your Own Mermaid Cove

This has been a hot spot for play lately.  We provided a box with flat stones, natural seashells, blocks, ocean animals, and a variety of mermaids in shell seats.  The "water" was simply a blue and silver silky scarf tied around the table.

The children have set the stage, played, and reimagined stories and scenes over and over again.

Sometimes our mermaids befriended nice turtles and dolphins.

Sometimes the mermaids needed a spot to chill out and have a snack.  And sometimes they had to escape to safety from an invading shark or orca whale!

It's a beautiful thing to behold when young children develop creative thinking skills, scientific knowledge of living things, language, and role playing with a small box of simple toys.  <3

Flippers to the Ocean

Baby sea turtles hatch on the beach and race with flipper feet to the safety of the ocean as fast as they can!  We replicated this animal activity with giant flip flops, a long strip of paper, and paint!

We started with yellow paint to be the beach sand, and ended with blue and green paint to be the water and sea weed.
 

These little turtles had so much fun and looked super cute on their race to the ocean!  <3

Sharks are Fish Too

During our Ocean studies, we learned about how to classify animals as fish via several activities.  This "shark anatomy" project took about two weeks to complete!  The first day we learned that fish are animals with scales, so we put on bubble wrap mittens and painted "scales" all over this paper.

Once dry, Ms. Harmony cut out the paper in the shape of a shark.  Over the next few classes, we gradually added fins, gills, and bones by studying our shark toys and from pictures in books.  A fish is an animal with bones, gills, fins, and scales.  (They also lay eggs!)  So this means that sharks, sting rays, and even sea horses go in the fish group too!  But "jelly fish" and "star fish" don't because they don't have any bones.  Isn't that silly?

Friend "Hammer" noticed that some of our stuffed animals in the House Area had gills too, just like we had put on our shark model!  He was pretty excited about that and found other animals that had gills too.  It was awesome to see the kids apply knowledge from Greeting Time, Small Group, and Circle Time to their own observations during Work Time.

One additional way we talked about classification was to sort these toys into ocean MAMMAL groups and ocean FISH groups.  We examined the toys for clues like blowholes.  We knew that an animal that comes up to the top of the water for air has lungs, not gills.  They are like us.  We also had learned earlier in the year that mammals are animals with fur or hair.  This meant we could classify animals like seals, whales, and dolphins in the mammal group because of either the presence of hair or blowholes.  (Once sorted, Ms. Harmony also reminded them that all of the animals in the mammal group had live babies, and all* of the animals in the fish group lay eggs.  *Actually there are some sharks that have live births, but there is no need to get that technical with kids ages 2-5!

The gills on the ray and shark were a dead giveaway that they went in the fish group!  :)  Ms. Harmony tried to be tricky by saying that since the shark had teeth, maybe we should put it with the seals and dolphins... but the kids caught on and reminded me that some fish have teeth, and others don't.  That's not important when deciding if the animal is a fish or not!  These kids are so bright!  You can't get anything past them!

Playground Highlights

This week we had so much fun using giant bubble wands on the playground!  The friends experimented with blowing, twirling, and waving the wands to create enormous bubbles!

Oceans galore on the table... We used ocean counters and Big Notchems on the table to create coral reefs and tell stories.  :)

Planning birthday parties!  It's so much fun to set the table, bake in the mud kitchen, and invite your friends to your awesome party!  So much planning and such fun work!

Preschoolers as Scientists

"Let's do what scientists do!  We'll study something, look at it up close, touch it, smell it, listen to it, and think... then write down what we've learned.  We can record our ideas with words, pictures, or tracing."

This was our Small Group prompt on Tuesday.  The children were each given a clipboard, pencil and sheet of paper.  They could choose a magnifying glass, and from a variety of star fish, sea shells, and shark teeth from the basket.

Some things we learned during this activity is that only the swirly shells sound like the ocean.  Flatter shells, starfish, and shark teeth do not.

We used a lot of descriptive language like: smooth, spiky, rough, tooth-like, sharp, spiral, striped, and so much more.  The students were encouraged to write or draw these words.

We even learned where the starfish mouth was!  Imagine eating from your belly button!  Starfish have a mouth right in the center of their bodies.  Tracing the starfish was challenging as well.  All of the starfish that we used had five legs.

 Here are some samples of the notes the children made.

Toddler "K" (age 2) "traced" her star fish by drawing circles around it.  She made some squiggles which she indicated were the words "starfish."  Ms. Harmony helped her write out the letters so another adult could read her words.

Friend "K" (age 5) traced her starfish and shark tooth independently.  She also drew her representations of seashells and labeled her diagrams.  She sounded out the words she wanted to write and wrote the letters herself.  If she was uncertain about a sound, Ms. Harmony would help her identify the correct letters like, /sh/ and /oo/.

Ocean Adventures

Today we kicked off our Ocean theme with some simple salt water experiments!

• We tasted the difference between fresh and salt water, and talked about not drinking the ocean because the water is YUCKY to drink.  ;)  
• We also observed that salt water makes it easier to float.  The "boat" sank to the bottom of our freshwater but stayed right on top in the salty water.  
• When the students return on Thursday we will see if the salt water we put outside evaporated, and whether the salt stayed behind or not!  

The kids' hypothesis is: once you mix the salt into the water, you cannot get the salt back out.  We will see!

Work Time plans included learning the names of some common ocean animals like squids, lobsters, and sting rays.  Friend "Hammer" thought the squid was especially creepy!

The pirate explore table was especially popular because the friends enjoyed finding buried jewels and gold coins in the sand.

Friend "Kangaroo" and I worked on a 48 piece mermaid puzzle.  She recalled that doing this was one of her favorite plans.  One of her questions about mermaids when she played with the dolls in the House Area was: "Where are the mermaids' feet?"  We talked about mermaids were creatures that were half human, half fish.  They don't have any feet, just fins!

Finally, many friends enjoyed mixing blue and green paint at the art easel.  We made some beautiful shades of teal!

Polar STEAM!

Weather at the Poles is cold, cold, cold!  But the polar adventures at Harmony's House have been downright steamy!

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 polar animals.

(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-
Penguin Movements:  Although, penguins are birds, they do not fly.  After reading a book about penguins in Circle Time, we tried out what it would be like to move like penguins.  To experience having short legs, we tied bandannas around our ankles and attempted to walk around.  We also hopped and pretended to slide on our bellies and swim.  The students learned about the various ways penguins, as polar birds, move around.

Finish the story:  During Small Group, Ms. Harmony read the first part of this book Little Polar Bear.  Then she invited the children to use their knowledge of these Arctic animals and the environment around the North Pole to finish the story in their own way.  After devising our own ending to the story of helping little Lars to find his way home, Ms. Harmony read the ending that the author chose for the little polar bear.

TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS-
Ocean Jello:  Many polar animals use the ocean as a method of survival because it is a source of food.  The fish, squid, penguins, seals, walruses, and whales find their feasts in the ocean.  To discuss the subject of animal feeding habits, we mixed up a small box of blue jello during Small Group.  In addition to talking about the phase change from liquid to solid and feeding habits of the animals, we also learned the names of cooking tools such as "liquid measuring cup" and "wire whisk."  After the jello set up, we enjoyed eating it with Cool Whip "snow" on top!

Puzzles and Magnifying Glasses:  This puzzle had a map and pictured animals found at both the North and the South poles.  After completing the puzzle in Small Group, we used magnifying glasses to search for the different animals.  We determined that penguins are only found in the southern hemisphere, while the Arctic circle has a wider range of animal diversity, and yet no penguins.  Further discussion about how the students interacted with the magnifying glasses can be found in this post.

ENGINEERING-
Polar Landscaping:  The children were invited to use loose parts such as stones, flattened marbles, cotton balls, felt, and Arctic animals to create these animal homes.

ART-
Black and white collage:  During Small Group, the students tore pieces of black paper while we discussed why animals that live at the poles often have black skin (even if its under white fur!) or feathers.  This color is best for absorbing heat from the Sun!  Polar animals also often have white fur or feathers for camouflage purposes.  Once the paper was torn, the school friends glued it onto white paper in collage fashion according to their personal preferences.

Pipette Icicles:  "What is an icicle?" Friend "K" asks.  That was a great question that we attempted to answer through an art experience.  Icicles are made when water melts, drips, and then refreezes.  We used pipettes at the easel with diluted grey and blue paint to see how liquid drips down.  More can be read on this activity here.

MATH-
Iceberg Number Recognition and Counting:  Ms. Harmony prepared these "icebergs" with numbers 1-10, star foil stickers, laminant, and blue painters tape.  First the children put the numbers in order.  If they weren't sure which number they had, they counted the stars to find out.  Then we tossed a beanbag on the icebergs.  Whichever number it landed on, the child hopped (like a penguin) to the iceberg and shouted out the number.

Snowflake geometry and shapes: This was one of our most recent awesome experiences!  The children learned about a new shape called HEXAGON that has six sides.  Snowflakes, although 100% unique, share a common trait of having six sides.  The school friends used large shapes to design their own "snowflakes" all over the rug during Circle Time.

We have really enjoyed the STEAM power through our studies of animals at the North and South poles!