Book inspiration

While waiting for my daughter to get out of her ballet class the other day I passed the time rummaging through a book sale at a small private library. What I found has inspired our newest project …Seeds!

 

There are several great aspects of this “I can read science book”. The text is simple and the illustrations are sweet. It introduces the concept of living vs. non-living by asking questions about the differences between a seed and a stone, a pebble, a marble. It identifies seeds that young children are exposed to in their everyday lives and gives a simple explanation of where seeds come from, all from the prospective of a small boy named Benny. For those interested the book is called Seeds and More Seeds” by Millicent E. Selsam (1959).

So Frida and I are on the look out for seeds… and anything else that we can put in a pot and see if it grows. I will collect some egg cartons and other small containers (yogurt pots etc.) in the coming weeks. Let’s hope Spring weather comes soon.

Take a Peek at Peep and the Big Wide World

Frida and I love this website when we are having some computer time together. There are games, videos and science and math activities to play with Preschoolers.

Human Anatomy ..for young children

Frida has recently become interested in anatomy. Not the parts of her body she can see…no that is old news…no she’s interested in what is inside her. This interest was sparked by a puzzle that she discovered at her new school. The first layer is clothes, then skin, then muscle, then organs and last the bones. What she has discovered through her constant questions is that all her friends have skin, muscle, organs and bones. Mommies and Daddies have skin,muscle, organs and bones, and yes Tigger, the cat, has muscles, organs and bones… oh and skin as well it’s just covered with all that fur. Now she starts to ask where the blood is and I’ve decided to try and find material for her curious mind. Perhaps this collection of books. Does blogland have any suggestions?

Update:
A friend of mine hooked me on this site which has short animated movies about the body.

Update Feb2008: Here is another great site for kids to learn about the body.

What about snails?

Snails are abundant where I live. One of my favorite activities to do with my daughter, Frida, is look for snails after a rain.

The Snails and Slugs page over at Backyard Nature is a very good source of information on snails. This site has many fun Snail activities such a making a terrarium for snails (see pictures above and below). The absolutely best page on fun teaching about Snails is here. Frida is still a bit young to appreciate most of the experiments, however, I think I could coax her into examining snails with a magnifying glass and/or maybe into a short snail race.

Early Spring

The winter in Switzerland this year has been extremely mild. In fact, we only had one week of snow. Unfortunately, during that period I was unable to try snowflake collecting. Let’s hope next winter brings more snow (can’t believe I just wrote that). This post will offer up some nice Spring activities involving flowers. Most of the activities are for Preschoolers:

Activities:

In Switzerland there is a lot of flower picking opportunities both free and pick/pay. First children can pick flowers of different kind and color. Flowers are brought back and sorted by color or kind and each category is counted. Cheap plastic vases and wood chips (with numbers painted on them) can be fashioned with Velcro and used to mark how many flowers are in each vase. This is an adaptation of FlowerShop homeschool activity. Counting and Sorting games are great for teaching math. I highly recommend looking at this site for other ideas.

Collecting white flowers, children can watch how flowers take up water. With white flowers, like Carnations or Queen Ann’s Lace, cut small piece of stem from bottom and place flower in vase containing water with a few drops of food coloring. Watch throughout the day as the petals change color. Details here

Don’t forget to have one group of flowers without food coloring to serve as a control.

When doing activities with flowers one possibility is to choose edible flowers. After main activity is finished the flowers can be tasted. If your child is like mine they may not readily eat the flowers. Why not sweeten the experience by preparing candied or crystallized flowers. List of edible flowers with comments on taste can be found here. Allergy prone individuals should not eat flowers.

More long term projects such as drying flowers and planting seeds are good for older children. Make a outdoor garden using an old baby pool. Make holes at the bottom of the pool then fill with dirt and plant flowers. Or a Baggie Garden by placing a a wet paper towel into a Ziploc bag and adding seeds.

Happy Spring

Technorama

Just east of Zurich near the town of Winterthur is Switzerland’s only Science Center Technorama. Frida and I went with some friends today to check it out. We went late which was a shame because we only had an hour to look around and this place has enough in it to make a full day of science fun. In the basement there at toy trains which all the kids really liked a lot. On the ground floor there were cool mechanics exhibits. Although Frida is far to young to understand the scientific concepts these exhibits demonstrate, she still thinks watching things move is cool. A lot of the exhibits have levers and buttons to push and pull which is really fun for preschoolers. On the second floor there are optics exhibits and wood machines (and much more but that is as far as we got). The wood machines are especially interesting for young children. They are made by Pierre Andres. Well Frida and I will definitely return to explore more.

Winter wonders

So while surfing the Sci News for Kids site I came across this website SnowCrystals.com . Although it isn’t snowing yet, I thought it would be perfect for my first post. There are 3 activities on this that I thought maybe suitable for Frida and/or the Science Club.
The first one is Snowflake Watching. This simply involves viewing snowflakes with a magnifying glass. There is even a printable PDF reference guide to the different type of crystals. This might be problematic for the club if no snow is falling but I will definitely do this with Frida.
The next one is Snowflake Fossils. This would be something I would prepare ahead of time and probably more suited for the 5-7 year olds, although Frida does enjoy trying to look through a microscope. Basically you collect snowflakes on microscope slides and then place cold super glue on top carefully sandwiching it with a cover slip. The problem with this is that you need a microscope to view the slides ( a good reason to buy one I think or maybe get an old one donated).
The last activity is Ice Spikes. Ice Spikes are spikes that form on ice cubes. Apparently, it rarely happens with regular tap water but distilled water will produce Ice spikes. The physics may be understandable to older kids. Again I may be over estimating what the kids will understand.
It would be plenty just to center the activities around the thought “Water can take several forms”. Then play with snow, ice, water and maybe steam. Do the above activities and maybe throw in making paper snowflakes.
I will post once I’ve done the activities and report how it went over.

Introduction

I have been throwing the idea for a Science club around for a while now. To help myself along I’ve decided to start this blog. I actually want to do two Science clubs. One club for 3-4 year olds and one for 5-7 year olds. The first club is to share my interest in Science with my daughter who is nearing the 3-4 age range. It is also a way to teach myself what kids that age respond to as far as experiments go. The second club is also for me to learn what it is that excites and interests kids in that age range and also I think it may be more satisfying for me experiment wise.
I’m guessing the initial posting to this blog will be quite unorganized and sporadic…sorry. Right now this blog is more for me then you…but hopefully this will change.

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