Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Playgroup, Volcano Style!

What child doesn't like making volcanoes?  Even better if they can get messy doing it.  well, that is exactly what we did for playgroup this week.  We made lots of volcanoes and used waay to much food colouring but everyone had lots of fun!!

Here is a look at some of what we got up to.

First we read some stories and looked at pictures of volcanoes and talked about what we knew about them.  Then we headed outside for a demonstration of an erupting volcano.  I used the elephant toothpaste recipe.  It wasn't as dramatic as I had hope but was still effective and the kids didn't mind.  My big kids want to try again with a stronger solution of Hydrogen Peroxide, but I figured with a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds running around playgroup probably wasn't the right time for that!!



After we had a play with the lava we headed inside to make our own volcanoes.

We cut out volcano shapes, glued them on and then squeezed yellow and red paint  on top.  Then we used straws to blow the paint around and give us an erupting effect!








We used trays of bicarb soda, coloured vinegar and syringes to make mini eruptions. This kept them all occupied for a very long time.  In fact, if this was all we did for playgroup the children would have been more than happy!!






And finally we made our own mini volcanoes.......



....then headed back outside with them to make them erupt again, and again, and again until we ran out of bi-carb soda, vinegar and food colouring!!!!  









Even the big kids couldn't resist getting involved with today's fun.








Wednesday, September 3, 2014

What's On the Shelf - September - Construction Unit

With three boys in the family we have no shortage of construction trucks, books and tools. So what better than a construction theme for this month.  Here is a look at the activities on our shelves for September.


All ready to start!



Our train table is now a construction site for the month.



Name practice using coloured rocks.  I started one for Nathanael too but ran out of rocks.  Beginning to think giving my now 2 year old a name with 9 letters was not so clever.  I think my SIL who gave her 2 year old a name with four letters was much smarter!!



Clothespin counting cards.



My boys love magnifying glasses so this is sure to be a hit.  The cards have tiny copies of each picture.  they need to use the magnifying glass to work out which picture it is and then match them up.



Coloured water and a funnel, what more could they need?!?!



Matching the items in the toolbox to the picture cards.



2 sets of cards to practice our positional words, on top, underneath, next to, behind, between etc.



Construction site board game.



Mini construction site sensory play.  I used our mini construction set and homemade moon sand.



Matching nuts and bolts.



Matching vehicles and 3 part cards.



Screwing practice.





Building marble tracks.





Vehicle jigsaw puzzles.



Letter and sound identification game.



Scooping rocks



Wooden construction set.




A variety of construction vehicles to play with.



Our construction playdough centre.


And lastly our construction craft centre.


We also have our large construction trucks outside in the sand pit that will get a good work out, our tool benches (toy and real) and many, many books.  I think this should keep the little ones busy for a while so we can get some school work done!



























Monday, September 1, 2014

Weekly Wrap-Up - Finishing our Space Unit

We finished up our month long unit of Space for the two littlies.  The older two will continue to do a more in depth study of the Solar system for the remainder of the year.  We continued with our shelf activities for the month but also saved some of our best and most fun activities for this week.  Here is a look at what we did.

Nathanael and Samuel dot painted all the planets to display on our wall.



Then we did some more paper mache planets.  These are taking a loooong time.  Hopefully we will get to paint them next week!




Liana and Liam made pin hole boxes to view the sun,





and Samuel painted and glued a wooden rocket ship.








We experimented with some fizzy, exploding colourful stars.  We made them by mixing bi-carb soda, a bit of water and food colouring to make a thick paste and then filled some ice cube moulds and froze them over night.  The next day we popped them in a tray of vinegar and watched the reaction!






Once they finished fizzing and exploding we added more bi-carb soda and made mountains and volcanoes complete with erupting red lava!!




For the final night of our space unit, I bought a packet of sparklers and we went outside and had a great time sparkling all over the front yard!!