Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Candy Cane Experiment

Do you have some extra candy canes lying around that you maybe don't want your kids to eat?? Try this experiment!! It only takes five minutes!

And I couldn't wait to try it with Monkey!

Supplies: candy canes, dish or bowl, water


First, we unwrapped a couple of candy canes and touched and tasted them. I even got Monkey to break one. I asked him what he thought might happen if the candy canes got wet. He wasn't really sure, which is fair. It takes a lot of practice to get children to be able to give a guess/hypothesis about something if they don't have any knowledge or experience of the situation to draw on. 

Next, I filled the glass dish with some hot water; just the hottest water I can get out of my kitchen tap, no need to boil. 


After that, Monkey put the candy cane into the water. 

 
The results are immediate! You can see the colours on the candy cane start to disappear instantly, and they form a little cloud in the water around the candy cane. 


In less than five minutes, almost all the colour was dissolved into the water, and the candy cane was visibly "melting away"... Monkey's words! 


Here is a comparison of the candy cane we put in the water next to a newly unwrapped one. 


This is a really simple, fast experiment which makes it perfect for young children. I'm not using specific vocabulary with Monkey yet (e.g., predict, observe, result), at least not purposefully. Instead I ask him what he sees and what is different from when we started. 

Now we're off to eat the rest of the candy canes! :)

Merry Christmas!! 

Mar

Monday, December 21, 2015

Christmas Cookie Cutter Painting

Recently I introduced some Christmas cookie cutters to Monkey when we made homemade playdough. Today we used the cookie cutters for some painting! 

Supplies: paper, Christmas cookie cutters, paint, yogurt lids (or something flat to put the paint on)


This was an easy activity to set up for Monkey. I made sure the paint was spread all over the yogurt lid so that it covered all of the cookie cutter because I knew Monkey wouldn't think of that. 


It was tricky for him at first but he started to get the hang of it after a few tries. 




We did two pages to give to Monkey's grandparents. I know they'll love it!


Easy set up and super cute!

Mar

Friday, December 18, 2015

Length and Number Christmas Tree

It seems that Monkey and I have been doing a lot of number activities lately. It's what he's interested in learning right now. He's trying so hard with counting and numbers. He says the cutest things like, "I think I want forty four cookies" or "This thing weighs a mega thousand pounds"!

Since he's so into numbers, I'll give him number activities. This one also deals with length and the concept of shortest and longest. 


Supplies: glue stick, Christmas stickers, green, white, and yellow construction paper


I used my paper cutter to cut a bunch of strips out of the green construction paper. The stickers I bought were pretty big so I made sure the strips were big enough to fit them. Then I chopped the strips into five lengths, the smallest for at the top of the tree and the longest for at the bottom. I also cut out a star for the top. 


I sat down with Monkey to get started. He just loves stickers so he was eager to see what I had planned. 

I told him the first job was to make the tree and we needed to glue the green pieces starting with the longest one at the bottom. I had laid them out all mixed up so it wouldn't be too easy for him. 


He had no problem ordering the green pieces from longest to shortest in the shape of a tree. 



As usual, I really tried not to do anything for him (unless he asked for help). I helped to make sure he put them close enough together so the tree would fit on the page, but I didn't straighten any out. I love how crooked and adorable it turned out. 

Next we moved onto the stickers. Starting at the top, each green strip of paper got some stickers, with one on the shortest and five on the longest. 


While he was working, I tried to use language like, "Three is one more than two". He may not entirely understand but it introduces him to that math language. 


I didn't tell him that he had to use the same stickers on each piece of green - he did that on his own but he definitely picked that up from me somewhere along the way. 


This ended up being a great math activity and a really cute piece of Christmas art! 


Mar

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Candy Cane Puffy Paint

Another Christmas activity!! I think this one was equally fun for Monkey and me. 

We made some puffy paint that smelled like candy canes. Yum!

I got the idea for this activity here: http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2013/11/candy-cane-activities-candy-cane-puffy.html?m=1

Supplies: flour, salt, water, peppermint extract, food colouring, squeeze
bottles, ziploc bags, black construction paper, measuring cups 


I prepped this activity last night. I even asked Monkey if he wanted to help because he usually loves measuring out ingredients with me, but he was busy playing so I did it on my own. 

To make the puffy paint, mix equal parts flour, sugar, and water in a ziploc bag. I wanted three colours, so I put 1/4 cup of each ingredient in each bag. This ended up making a lot of paint, more than Monkey could use. 


I added food colouring to two of the bags, red and green, leaving the last bag white. In the past I have made this at school using paint instead, and I would recommend using paint over food colouring because it makes the colours much more vibrant. Finally, I added a few drops of peppermint extract to each bag so that the paint would smell like candy canes!! Then I sealed the bags and mixed it all up. 


Once the paint was all mixed up, I cut the corner of the ziploc bag and squeezed the paint into the bottles. 

Today I got the activity set out for Monkey. I wanted to use black construction paper because there would be a big contrast with the Christmas colours I made. 


Monkey loved squeezing the bottles. It's such a different way to paint conpared to using paint brushes, and it uses different muscles and a completely different technique. 


At first he just went all over the place with the colours, just making a beautiful, messy picture. For the most part, that's still where he is developmentally with his art. 
 


But then he asked me to draw something with him. First we drew a Christmas tree...


And then an Easter egg... 


He's been talking about Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny quite a bit in the past week and I junk he might be a bit confused about the holidays! He even made himself an Easter egg hunt yesterday. 

Then since I was having so much fun I did one last page myself. 


Mar

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Number Colour Match Christmas Tree

I'm excited to share this activity. It was easy to get ready and Monkey loved it!

Instead of doing letters, I did numbers because that's what I'm working on within Monkey right now. This would also work with shapes, words, anything really!

Supplies: paper or cardstock, bingo daubers, pencil


Last night, I printed an outline of a Christmas tree onto a piece of cardstock, because I'm a perfectionist and I didn't want to draw one poorly. 

Then I put some numbers inside the tree. I put mostly 1's which would be green and take up most of the tree, and added 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's, which would be the decorations, so I didn't put as many. 


Next, I made a code for Monkey so he would know what colour to use on each number. 


I set it up today for Monkey. 


After we talked about what to do, he got started. He sure loves his bingo daubers. 


If it were me, I'd do all of one colour, then all of another colour, and so on. But Monkey changed colours as much as he could. 


Monkey asked me to add a star at the top of the tree and he coloured the trunk on his own. 


I just loooooove how this turned out. It was easy to get ready and easy for Monkey to do by himself. There are so many different pictures you could do, too. 

Mar

Friday, December 11, 2015

Crystal Ornaments

I've seen this experiment numerous times over the past few years while looking through science activities for kindergarten and for Monkey. I always thought, I'll get to that someday. Well we did it today and I wish we had done it ages ago! Not only is it very easy but it is awesome to watch. It doesn't take too long for the results and they are amazing. 

Christmas is my absolute favourite time of the year, so you will probably see a lot of Christmas related activities from now until then. Hence the crystal ornaments! It certainly wouldn't have to be Christmas to do this experiment, I just think it worked out perfectly for me that it is :)

Supplies: Borax, string, glass jars, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, measuring cup and tablespoon, mixing bowl, kettle


The first step was to twist the pipe cleaners into shapes; in our case Christmas shapes. 


Next, I tied a string to the top of each shape. I left it long enough that I would be able to tie it into a loop afterwards. Then I lowered the pipe cleaner shapes into the jars and taped the string to a popsicle stick, which sat across the mouth of the jar. This took some time as you have to be sure that the pipe cleaner is not touching the sides or the bottom of the jar, otherwise it will get stuck once the crystals start to form. I ended up having to trim the snowflake and the spiral in order for them to fit. 


Now that the pipe cleaner shapes were ready to go in the glass jars, we made the Borax and water solution. To do this,
I mixed three cups of boiling water with nine tablespoons of Borax. 


Stir the solution until the Borax dissolves
completely and the liquid is almost crystal clear, then pour into the glass jars. Monkey usually loves helping with counting, measuring, and stirring, but he wasn't interested today. 


In the end I had to make two batches of Borax solution (a total of six cups of water and eighteen tablespoons of Borax) to fill the four glass jars. 

Then we waited. Luckily it didn't take long for us to see the results!! In less than an hour we could see crystals on the pipe cleaners, and in just a few hours they were covered. 


I let them sit in the Borax solution overnight and then drained the liquid out in the morning. It took a few hours for the ornaments to dry and then I removed the popsicle sticks, made a loop with the string, and hung them in the window. 


Unfortunately, you can't tell from the picture, but they do sparkle a little bit in the light. We have them right next to our tree and they look so nice! 

This was an awesome experiment and I was surprised at how fast it worked. I will definitely do this again. 

Mar

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Colouring on Playdough

The past few days have been a little exhausting for us. Peanut is getting a tooth and has been very clingy and his schedule has been all over the place, so Monkey hasn't been getting a lot of my attention. Peanut is sleeping it all off today, so Monkey and I had lots of time to cook up some homemade playdough. 

I got the idea for the activity as well as the recipe for the playdough here: http://homegrownfriends.com/home/coloring-playdough-with-markers/
It's not a recipe I have ever used before - I make playdough at school but we can't use a stove so I always have to make a "no-heat" version - but I was eager to try the stovetop method. 

You'll have to follow the directions from the link above to make the playdough, but here are some pictures of Monkey and I at work. 




It turned out OK. Not the best I've ever made, but pretty good. I didn't add any food colouring because of the activity I had planned to do with the playdough next. 

Supplies: homemade playdough, markers, playdough tools, cookie cutters 


I picked up the cookie cutters at the dollar store, perfect for a Christmas season playdough activity!

I could barely get the picture taken before Monkey was grabbing at the playdough and markers. He was so excited to get playing!


Monkey cut off some smaller pieces and we rolled them out to use with the cookie cutters. 


Once we had cut out the shapes we wanted, we coloured them. This was great, I had to do one too, couldn't help myself! 



Aren't they cute? 

They only lasted a few minutes before Monkey grabbed his playdough trucks and acted like a typical little boy and destroyed them!


After a while, I encouraged Monkey to colour on a big rolled out piece of playdough. 


Then he wanted to chop it all up. 


Look at all the fine motor skills he's using!


Monkey must have thought that we didn't have enough toys out yet because he went and grabbed his mini animals to use, too. 

First, he made a pond for his hippo. 



Then he had all his animals together in one big bathtub. 


They were all talking to each other about sharing the bath toys, so cute!!! I love hearing his dialogue during pretend play. 

This turned out to be a big, messy, all jumbled up sort of activity. Monkey played at the table for over an hour, which is a long time for a three year old to stay engaged, and a perfect way to keep him entertained while I took care of his sick little brother. 

Mar