Investigating Apples...and some Apple Pie Playdoh Fun!

   Happy First Day of Fall!

   One of my very favorite fall themes to do every year with munchkins is APPLES! I remember the first few years that I was teaching, I had a gazillion apple ideas and I wanted to do them all! That still holds true today, as I am trying to squeeze in lots of apple learning fun!

   After reading a few non-fiction books about apples, my munchkins dictated a few facts about apples. I added a little apple shape at the beginning of each sentence, to help them learn how to track print. I chose a few children each day to "read" the sentence and track the words with my pointer. Some kids have simply repeated after me and track the print as they say it, while others have already memorized parts of the sentences and can "read" and track the print.

    I created an Apple diagram to display and teach the parts of an apple. We dissected an apple, identified the parts and then the munchkins investigated the apple halves in our Science Center and drew their own diagram of the inside of an apple.

   We have  also been having TONS of fun playing with our Apple Pie Play Doh! 

   I LOVE to make my own playdoh and I follow this exact recipe, for playdoh that comes out perfect everytime! (And for this particular batch, I added red food coloring and apple pie spice.):

1 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup Salt

1 Tablespoon Cooking Oil

1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar

1 Cup Water

(Add food coloring & scents, as desired)

*Mix all these ingredients together in a pan and put under medium heat, stirring every few minutes, Once its consistency changes from being liquidy to a semi-solid state, lower the heat and stir a few more times. Once it reaches a soft consistency, remove it from heat and place it on a cutting board to cool for a minute or two and then knead it.

Kids love it!!

    The munchkins have been working alot on fine motor skills lately, to strengthen those little muscles in their hands and fingers. Here, they rolled the playdoh into little "worms" and then used craft scissors to cut up the "worm" into tiny pieces.

I threw in some apple cookie cutters the next day.

 They did some more rolling work with these awesome (and free) Number Mats

 from Life Over C's.

    This batch of Apple Pie playdoh smells so delicious, I am not surprised at all that the munchkins pull it out every single chance they get! Any activity with this Apple Playdoh is a fun, sensory fine motor activity!

Mad Science Monday: FROZEN Slime!

   I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!  The weather was perfect and it was a pretty quiet and relaxing 4th of July for us this year.
   I know some of you are in the same boat as me when I say that my little munchkin is stilll very much obsessed with everything FROZEN. So, I have been thinking- why not have some learning fun with a FROZEN theme?? There are TONS of ideas all over Pinterest lately and I am eager to try a few and have some FROZEN fun!
    Today, we squeezed in some Mad Science Monday fun.... and we made FROZEN slime!

    There are many different ways to make slime, but the one I chose was very simple and required only 2 ingredients and it was a recipe from Growing a Jeweled Rose:
1) Liquid Starch (I found it in the laundry detergent section at Walmart)
2) Colored Glitter Glue (It can be found at Walmart, Michaels or any craft store.)

The munchkin poured the glue into a bowl and I slowly added in the liquid starch, one cup at a time. 

    We mixed it together and kneaded it for a few minutes until it reached a soft, slimy, yet not too sticky consistency. If it is too sticky, add a little more liquid starch, but not too much or it can take on a consistency of playdoh. (We made 2 batches- one purple and one blue and added her Elsa, Anna and Olaf toys.)

The slime was so fun to stretch and twirl!!

She engaged in slime play for over an hour. Elsa, Anna and Olaf each got slimed!

And Elsa got a brand new blue glittery (very see through) dress!!

And then she put them to bed!

This was so much fun! I even enjoyed playing with it myself... great sensory play for any age!

I know this is just the beginning to all the fun we are going to have with a FROZEN theme!

Mad Science Monday: Which Will Freeze?

    Mad Science Monday is back! We haven't been doing too many science activities in the past few weeks, but I thought we should give experiments another round! I came across a simple kitchen science experiment from No Time for Flashcards.
    We were curious to find out if all liquids would freeze. So, we grabbed a few liquids from around the kitchen and poured a little of each liquid into squares of an ice cube tray.
    Here are the things we used:

(Distilled Vinegar, Soy Sauce, Canola Oil, Syrup, A1 Sauce, Ranch Dressing, Dish Soap, and we added Ketchup and Water at the last minute)

    The little munchkin predicted that everything will freeze, while my teen thought that the oil would take awhile to freeze, but it eventually would.

    Here is what we discovered:

   After one hour, we took it out of the freezer and found that the dish soap, vinegar and A1 Sauce were already starting to form crystals and freeze. The syrup, ketchup and ranch dressing were just a little mushy. The soy sauce, canola oil and syrup were not frozen nor showed signs of crystallization. 

    After 2 hours, we checked it again, and found that the only things that had not frozen were the soy sauce and syrup.

    And a day later, the soy sauce remained unfrozen, along with the syrup!

It was a fun simple science experiment to do with things you have in your kitchen! We were all surprised by the results!

Try it with your munchkins!! 

    All you need is an ice cube tray and different liquids to fill the tray. Ask questions about what they know about the liquids and make predictions as to what till freeze and what will not freeze! Or to go even further, have them guess which one will be the first and last to freeze! 

Mad Science Monday: "Where does rain come from?"

    This past weekend had us pretty busy and for the better part of Saturday, we were dealing with rain and cold.  BLAH!
   Sometime on Saturday, while we were at the Autism Awareness Walk, the little munchkin asked me: "Why is there so much rain?"  I asked her, "Well, do you know were rain comes from?" And she, like many kids, stated, "From the sky."...
    Now this isn't exactly the wrong answer and most kids will give this answer, however, it prompted me to give her a very elementary explanation of the water cycle so she could learn that yes, rain does come from the sky, but more specifically, it comes from the clouds.
   I didn't use too much elaborate wording with her though. I simply told her that water vapor is found in the rivers, lakes, oceans and on the ground, and when there is warm air around, the water vapor rises up into the sky as little drops of water and those little droplets form clouds. When the clouds get full of water droplets, it falls back to the ground as rain!

   I read the book "Down Comes The Rain" by Franklyn M. Branley & James Graham Hale. And for a more simple and visual explanation of this whole process,  I took a bag of cottonballs to serve as "clouds" and filled a small vase with water.

   I put one cottonball in the water to show her how it absorbed some water, and then squeezed the water out to show her how much was absorbed inside of the cottonball.
    I asked her to guess how many cottonballs we would need to absorb all the water. She estimated that it would take 22 cottonballs to get rid of all the water in the vase.

    Then she was off to test her guess.

    She found out that it took 74  cottonballs to gather and absorb all of the water out of the vase! That's a whole lot of cottonballs... but they were fairly small ones. I am sure those jumbo ones can hold much more water.

And then the fun part: 

Making Rain!

    I told her that the "clouds" were now full of water and when that happens, the water comes out of the clouds in the form of rain drops!
   I gave her the go ahead to SQUEEZE all the water out of the "clouds" and make rain... which was what she was waiting to do!

And of course, some cottonball and water play followed!

    So, if your munchkins ask you where rain comes from, try out this quick little experiment to give them a visual and very basic understanding of the water cycle and how rain forms!

Earth Day Activity: Oil vs. Water Experiment

Happy Earth Day!

   I started my rainy morning by going to Target to pick up a few groceries for the week and ended up stranded in the Starbucks cafe for about 15 minutes because of the crazy downpour! And while I was there, I picked up some coffee (of course) and threw in another $1 to purchase this cool reusable Starbucks cup. How's that for environmentally conscious? =)

   As I was debating what to teach my little munchkin about Earth Day (without being repetitious from the things she was going to learn in school), I decided to tie our Earth Day learning with a little science experiment. I have been eyeing Oil & Water exploration, so I used that as a tie in to the lesson, especially after reading a post from Secondgradealicious. I knew I could take it down a notch or two to bring it to the level of understanding for my little one.

 But FIRST: The Oil & Water Exploration:

For this little experiment, we used baby oil and some food coloring and water and a small baking dish.

(The feathers come into play later.)

    Actually, any kind of oil will do. I just chose baby oil because it is clear. But if you are working with younger children, any type of cooking oil may be best, in case little fingers go into the mouth.)

     I poured baby oil into the dish, probably less than halfway. I filled each little cup with water and added abour 4 drops of food coloring to the water.

    Before we started, I asked: 

"What do you think will happen when we put the colored water inside this dish full of oil?"

Here were her answers:

1) It will mix and then change colors.

2) It will explode.

Can you see how much she loves these little experiments? 

    She remembers what has happened in previous experiments and is now trying to apply that learning to something new!

And here is what she discovered:

    When she dropped colored water into the dish full of baby oil with a dropper, it created bubbles, both big and small.

 (The natural reaction of water and oil is that they will not mix and they will remain separate.)

She was so into the exploration, especially when she started to try and mix the colors.

    Then I went on to talk about geese and ducks that swim in the water, just like the ones we saw when we went on a nature hike this past weekend. I briefly told her how some boats that are in the water carry oil and sometimes the oil spills into the water and it isn't safe for the animals that live in the water. 

   Then she surprised me and asked if we could make the Earth using only green and blue. (It was like she knew where I was going with this experiment!) I dumped the colorful oil, refilled the dish and she mixed in green and blue water to create Earth.

I gave her some feathers and asked her to put them in the oil.

    Then I asked her to take it one out and feel it. I took her descriptions of the oil (slimy, sticky) and told her that when the oil gets in the water and onto the feathers of some animals that swim in the water, they feel slimy and sticky, making it hard for them to move or swim to find food. Sadly, sometimes they drink the oil and they could die. 

I asked her to brainstorm ways in which she could get the oil off. She immediately grabbed a napkin to wipe off the oil, only to find out that it really didn't help much at all- the feather was still slippery and slimy.

    Then she suggested putting them into a cup of water, which kind of helped but did not remove the oil right away. After taking some time to conclude the experiment and talk about why Oil Spills are dangerous for the Earth and the animals, she asked for more feathers and continued to play in the oil, as if the feathers were a family of ducks!

   She seemed a little interested in the whole oil spill topic and how it hurts the Earth and the animals. I think I am going to purchase this book for her, so we can learn little bit more!

All in all, this was a GREAT Earth Day Learning Activity for her!

Mad Science Monday: Peep Experiment

    I am excited about this week's Mad Science Monday experiment. Last year, the kids and I microwaved Peeps and saw what happened.... it was lots of fun and hilarious to see the end product of the Peep! We couldn't wait to try another Peep experiment this year.

   This Peep experiment idea came from Bernadette over at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas... again! I love her blog. She does so many  fun learning activities with her girls!
    For this experiment, we wanted to see what would happen to Peeps when we put them in different liquids. We used vinegar, water, soda and orange juice.

    The munchkin poured in 2/3 cup into a clear plastic cup. (A clear cup makes it easier to see what is happening to the Peep.)

    We placed one Peep in each cup and started to think about what would happen. 

    She used a fork and tried to push a Peep down into the liquids to see if it would sink and stay down (seems that she remembered the Sink & Float experiment from a few weeks ago)...but it didn't. Each peep floated on top of the liquid.
   After 3 hours, we checked them:
   (I had flipped them over after like 1.5 hours)
   In the water, the black eyes had come off and the water was turning yellow.
   In the soda, the peep was still yellow, but also starting to turn brown.
   In the vinegar, the peep looked like it was starting to lose its pink color.
   In the orange juice, the pink color seemed to be coming off as well.

  After 9 hours (this morning), we checked on the Peeps and here is what we saw:

    The peep in the water had turned completely white and the water was yellow. 

The black eyes and nose floated in the water too!

    The peep in the soda was completely brown and it looked like the acid in the soda was eating at the marshmallow. (Very easy to see how bad soda is for you!)

The nose and eyes were still there but not very visible.

    The peep in the orange juice was no longer pink and was completely white. 

Eyes and nose were still intact.

    The peep in the vinegar was also mostly white and the nose and eyes were still intact too.

    And then my son poked a skewer through each peep and it easily went right through it!

And then after another 4 hours, we took a peek at them again and didn't notice too much except that the peep in the vinegar lost its black mouth and it looked like the eyes were coming off too.

The little one was pretty disgusted when she saw how mushy they were and didn't want to touch them!

And she definitely did not like the way that the peep in the soda looked!

Afterwards we just talked about what happened to each one and possible reasons as to why it happened. We are going to leave them in there for a few more hours and then see what they look like then.

Now, we are thinking of other liquids to put the peeps into!
This was fun and it allowed both of my kids to make a prediction as to what would happen in each liquid. 

Try this fun Peep Experiment and let me know what liquids you choose to use and what happened!!

Mad Science Monday: Sink or Float?

   Yay! I think Spring has finally arrived.... wait, let me not say that too loud around here!!  The last time the weather warmed up a bit (and I was happy to see grass again), it only happened to be a big tease, as Mother Nature laughed at us and said,  "Just Kidding" and dumped snow on us again this past Saturday. Not cool Mother Nature...not cool.
   Anyhow, the weather warmed up a little today and the snow is melting once again...

   As Spring and Easter arrive, there are tons ( and I do mean TONS) of great ideas that are out there as far as learning activities for kids. I have lots on my Pinterest boards, as well as a few ideas of my own that I hope to be able to get to this coming month.
   This past weekend, as I was thinking of a Mad Science Monday activity, I wanted to do something a little different than what we have been doing. So, today, instead of mixing stuff together, we did some investigative type of work, complete with making predictions and doing an experiment to see if the predictions were correct.
   I chose the topic "Sink or Float?", and I read the little munchkin a book called "Floating and Sinking", to familiarize her with both terms and concepts. I refrained from telling her outright that heavy things will most likely sink and light things will most likely not. I wanted her to conduct her experiment and find out on her own, what items would sink and what items would float.

    I took a few plastic eggs of two different sizes and placed random items from around the house in each one. I filled a small tub with water and very little blue food coloring for an added effect. The eggs have small holes and I used small strips of packaging tape to cover up the holes so the water wouldn't seep in. She opened up each egg and I had her predict whether the egg would sink or float when we put it in the water.

    I had her draw each egg (in the correct color and size) onto a sheet so that she could refer back to it, after the experiment.

Here were her predictions:

    She dropped each egg into the water and we discussed whether her prediction on that egg was correct. She discovered that most of the eggs floated, despite her predictions. I think she thought all of the eggs were going to end up floating, until she dropped in the small pink one (which was filled with decorative vase fillers). She was shocked that one egg actually sank to the bottom!

   Then she wanted to crack each egg open and see if the items inside would sink or float. And to her surprise, some items did sink (like our letter tiles) once they were outside of the egg!

   And of course, this led to some coveted water play ... which kept her busy while I made dinner.  And since she's a little sick, I poured in some Vicks Vapor Bath while she played, for an added sensory experience!