My 5-year-old was petrified of the dark when she was younger. She couldn’t even bear to have the curtains open and see the blackness outside. Only later did we discover that she had really poor eyesight and her fear gradually decreased once she had glasses. It is so lovely to see the progression from a terrified toddler to an excited child who loves to play outside in the dark with a torch.
What had originally been an icy art project, unexpectedly turned into a fascinating science investigation.
A few weeks ago we filled up my baking tins with water that we coloured with powder paint and dropped all manner of things into them. Shells, berries, leaves, sequins, buttons and even a stone were placed inside to make ornaments for our tree. The weather unfortunately instantly became warmer, so we had to wait some time before they were ready to hang. Even then, only the top layer of ice had frozen and within an hour of hanging them on the tree they had melted. We also discovered that if you colour water with powder paint it separates once it begins to freeze, so most of the ornaments were not the lovely colour we had hoped for.
The girls have been peeking outside every morning to check if there is any ice. This week they were rewarded with below freezing temperatures. The ice ornaments were finally ready! We hung them on the tree. The sun was shining and the tree stands in the sun until mid afternoon. I wasn’t sure how long they would stay this time as ‘plop’ one fell down from the tree.
Let’s put it by the door. That’s in the shade – it might make a nice present for Father Christmas.
A present for Santa
As we went inside I asked the girls to watch the ornaments from the window.
They are melting.
How do you know?
They’re wet and they’re dripping down.
What do you think will happen as they melt?
I don’t think it will fall off the string because the string is attached. It will just melt and the floor will be wet.
When we went out later there were more interesting observations
Look this one has holes in it. It might break not melt.
Can I touch one?
Yes sure.
It’s cold and wet.
Within an hour or so the tree was in the shade and the temperature was beginning to drop. We noticed that the drips were starting to turn into little icicles.
The girls thought this was really cool and the next day even more so when we saw large icicles had formed.
They rushed outside to feel them, touching them gently so that they didn’t break off.
A Winter Pirate Treasure Hunt
The weather was so cold that during the late afternoon I sneaked into the garden with a jug of water and some pirate coins. I put the coins in various containers and poured a little water on the top.
In the morning I invited the girls on a pirate treasure hunt. First they needed to make a map. I had some coffee stained and singed paper that in true Blue Peter fashion I had prepared earlier.
Next they needed their pirate toolkit:
A hammer
A spoon
A pot of pirate sea salt
Ready Mummy
Out they went and quickly found coins. The hammers were their first choice. They weren’t very successful so then they tried the salt. They found that if they used the spoons and the salt they could gradually get down to the coin and hook it out.
Got it!
This could take ages, if we got a jug of hot water it might be quicker.
The ice is still there you just can’t see it.
Drop it in the water
We were talking about the sea salt later in the day.
How do the pirates get salt from the sea?
Good question. The salt is in the water so how do you think they could get it out?
I don’t know.
Shall we try it?
Yes.
Little Scientists
What do we need to do to make the salt disappear into the water?
We need to dissolve it
How? Do you remember how we made jelly dissolve or the sugar water we make for the hummingbirds?
We put hot water on it. Let’s be scientists and do an experiment.
The girls helped to stir the mixture until all the salt had dissolved. We poured the mixture into a pan and put it on the stove.
What happens to water when it gets cold?
It turns to ice
What about when it gets hot?
I don’t know.
Watch. What can you see.
steam
If I put this spoon over the steam what can you see on the spoon.
It’s wet – water.
Yes the water is turning to steam. Now look what’s happening in the pan. What do you think the white stuff is?
I don’t know. Is it steam.
No. The water has gone now so what is left?
salt.
We had another idea for an experiment. If we put the salt back in water and then left it outside would it freeze?
I used to love frosty days when I was a kid because we could play on the way to school pretending to ice skate or breathe like a dragon. The same sense of wonder came over my girls when they looked out on a clear frosty morning. They dressed quickly and rushed outside to see if they could find ice . They found ice on top of the water table and in containers that we have on the deck.
They soon learned that ice is very cold!
Later in the morning the girls put on their gloves to go out on an ice hunt.
Look there is water and a leaf is floating. The ice has edges, I think there is water underneath.
I removed the lid from the water table. The girls were very excited to find ice inside there too. We added the penguins play set and a few whales.
We made a slide for the penguins with some of the broken ice.
When we got to the front of the house we found a small patch of frost.
Why is it frosty here and not anywhere else?
Because the sun made it melt.
So, why didn’t this bit melt?
It was in the shade.
We decided to leave the lid off the water table to see if we could get even more ice the next day. When they woke up the next day the girls were desperate to get out before any of the ice had melted.
First they checked the water table.
The ice was thick and some of the penguins were buried underneath.
Let’s see what else we can find.
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We went back to the water table where the girls found 2 scoops filled with ice.
We can’t get it out.
Shall I run it under the hot tap like I do with the ice lollies?
Yes please
Next the girls turned their attentions to the animals stuck in the water tray.
Please can we get them out? Can we put hot water on them too?
Yes. I’ll get some.
We poured water onto the ice to free the animals, they could feel the hot water making holes and as we poured more on they were able to free them.
The other side of the water tray made a perfect ice rink for the penguins.
I’m so glad we are home pre-schooling on days like this. Our next project is to make ice decorations for the tree at the front of the house and using pirate treasure maps they made earlier in the week, hunt for coins buried in the ice. My pirate obsessed girls will be armed with special pirate tools and a bit of magic sea salt. Arrrr.
Some of Roald Dahl’s books are a little gruesome for pre-schoolers but I have just started reading some of the less scary ones to my 4-year old. We are currently reading ‘James and the Giant Peach’, she has watched the film of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and we recently finished ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’.
One of her favourite activities is potion making, so she really loved the story of a boy who empties out every container in the house to make a special medicine. I have to leave the girls toiletries out of reach to avoid them emptying bottles to make potions but that doesn’t stop them sneakily taking their dad’s, sister’s or my toiletries or climbing onto the stool to get food colourings from the cupboard.
I set up the mud kitchen in the garden with some of the ingredients from George’s Marvellous Medicine and a cauldron for mixing it in.
Shadows provide extraordinary educational opportunities. Not only do they raise a spontaneous curiosity in the child, stimulating his imagination and exercising his emerging intellectual abilities but they are also omnipresent (even more than sand, stones, water or “pencil and paper”, because you only need a bit of sunlight or even a candle to produce them). Perhaps more effectively than other things, shadows can nourish the child’s need to do and to experiment given the ease with which the variables involved in their formation and transformation can be manipulated.
( Guido Peter – The Hundred Languages of Children)
My youngest has become increasingly fascinated by shadows. As we walk along she shouts
I can see your shadow
or
my shadow is long
With this in mind I thought it would be a nice idea to make shadow shapes and draw around them with pavement chalk. Some shapes worked better than others, my youngest daughter’s shadow looked a little like an embryo!
The girls drew around them. They were particularly interested by the fact that they couldn’t see the whole of their legs. It was a very hot day so only my 4- year- old wanted to colour in the detail. They were very proud of them and pointed them out to their dad every time he walked over the driveway.
drawing around shadows
The finished outline
pavement chalk
the finished drawing
My 4- year -old has very poor eyesight and needs practice copying and tracing shapes to enhance her perceptual motor skills . I hate the idea of sitting her down with worksheets so I thought shadow tracing might be a nice alternative. We took a number of objects outside to draw around. We even attempted to draw around her bike, which was a little tricky.
Later in the week we were playing with blocks in the house.
My 2-year old declared
I have a shadow, it’s behind me
Where is the shadow coming from? What makes it appear?
Maybe the fan.
Okay, so let’s turn the fan off and see if they disappear. Has it gone?
No
My 4-year-old had an idea
I know maybe it’s the light, let’s turn it off. It’s gone!……………oh hang on it’s still there, it’s just fainter.
Shall we see if we have a shadow outside today?
We don’t have a shadow……. Oh wait, when you sit down there is a bit of a shadow.
No shadow
When we sit down there is a bit of a shadow.
Why do you think that happens?
I don’t know. Let’s see if there are any shadows on the grass. No, not even the dog.
Do the trees have shadows?
Yes and the bushes.
investigating shadows near to the ground
My 2-year-old had an idea,
Maybe the sun has taken away our shadows.
No, that’s not right because the sun makes the shadows.
Maybe when the sun is not there it takes them away?
I know, let’s draw a sun and see if they come back.
drawing a sun to bring the shadows back
I know we can stand in the sun and make it bright colours to see if it comes out.
In the meantime my 9-year-old came to join us. I told them the girls had a bit of a problem that they were trying to solve and wondered if she could work it out.
Why is it that when it is cloudy there are no shadows but when things are close to the ground there is a small shadow?
Maybe it’s because it is darker when you are close to the ground
But there is no sun and you need light to make a shadow.
Yes, but if it was dark I couldn’t make a shadow because it couldn’t get darker.
If we were in the sun and it was too bright what would we do?
Stand in the shade.
What makes the shade?
A tree.
So what is happening to make the shade?
I don’t understand.
I drew a picture of the sun in the sky with a stick person stood underneath and a tree with a stick person underneath the tree.
Oh, the tree gets in the way of the sun.
At that moment as the girls were standing in their picture of the sun, the sun came out.
They stood in the sun and hey presto the sun came out. Look, it worked the sun came out!
I think we might work on reflections as a starting point for our pre-school year . We could
Resurrect the shadow puppet theatre
Use the projector to make and investigate shadows
Place paper on the windows and observe and trace shadows
Continue to talk about and ask questions about shadows when we are out and about.
I’ve got an idea Mummy. How about we get the plates we use for barbecues, collect lots of things from around the garden like leaves and sticks and stuff and make people.
Great idea. You could use things from the loose parts station too.
I know, we could use bottle tops for eyes. There are 4 of us so we need 8.
We need 8. We have 10 let’s throw 2 of them away. Now that’s right.
Oh no! We are not allowed to pick leaves from the trees and it isn’t autumn. How will we get leaves?
Look there are some nice little yellow leaves on the floor. Where did they come from?
This tree up here.
That looks like a cherry tree, there are red fruit on it but they are very small.
I’ll pick one and see if there is a stone inside. Yes there is, they are cherries. We could use them for a nose.
My 2 year-old started making a face but soon became more interested in exploring what the glue did. She then brought her watering can and watered her face.
Starting to make a face.
I’m sprinkling grass on mine.
I need more glue.
I’m putting water on mine, it makes it all soggy.
Just as with the clay my 2-year-old has very different interests and plays at a different level to her sisters but that never prohibits her joining in.
In a bid to meet new people the girls and I sometimes join groups of other mums and their kids through meet up groups. Our latest venture was to Dr Maze’s Farm.
Dr Maze’s Farm is a family run working farm that grows seasonal crops. What I loved about it was that it was a no frills day of outdoor fun. It was lovely to visit a farm that didn’t have rides, softplay or large playgrounds, no café or extras to pay for; a place that encouraged exploration and being at one with nature.
Dr Maze’s farm is open during the Summer months on a Friday and Saturday from 10am till 2pm. Opening hours are extended during their special events such as Lavender Festival in July and Pumpkin Patch during October.
On a Friday morning Tots Friday is included in the admission price ($6 increasing to $9 from 12th July) and runs from 10.30 to 11.30. Tots Friday is aimed at the under 5’s but my 9-year-old was welcomed and enjoyed herself too. Each week they have a different theme with activities set up under cover. The theme when we attended was goats, which included goats for the children to pet. There was also a large mud pit for the children to dig and find worms, various sensory bins containing grain and a cut and stick caterpillar activity.
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Towards the end of the session they took the children out to pick crops from the field. They picked kale, sugar snap peas and chard and were encouraged to fill a bag to take home with them. This was a great opportunity for the children to see how crops grow, how to harvest them and experience some new plants.
sugar snap peas
Kale
Once we had filled our bags the girls enjoyed petting and feeding the animals before going on a tractor ride around the farm.
Feeding the goat
A bumpy tractor ride
We explored the grounds further. There was plenty for them to do from giant Jenga, mazes, a chicken show, a giant spider web and various things to ride on. My personal favourite was the music garden. They had perfectly utilised household objects to make a great little sound garden that would be an inspiration to any pre-school or someone like me who now wants to build one in the garden.
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Next came the girls favourite part of the day ‘Bubble Friday’. A station was arranged with all kinds of bubble wands and trays of bubble mixture. The girls started with familiar ones and then learned how to use more elaborate methods to make giant bubbles. They had an amazing time experimenting with the different types, supported by 2 very friendly ladies. They were so proud of their huge bubbles.
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When it was time to go, they didn’t want to leave but I promised we would go back. We are going to sample the Lavender Festival tomorrow armed with a picnic and with extended opening hours I’m sure we will have a very busy day.
It feels like you are visiting the farmer’s family, who give the impression that they are people who love children, being outdoors and sharing their farm with the public. They even gave us a freshly laid egg to take home with us.
There is a small shop in the entrance selling plants, lavender products, honey and drinks but I would recommend taking a picnic or at least snacks if you intend to stay until closing time.
This is a personal recommendation, no payment of any kind was received for writing this post.
I laughed to myself as I watched my 2-year-old playing in the borders, hiding a stick in the bushes and drawing in the dirt. A few feet away was a very expensive sensory playground with musical instruments, water features and a little bear cave. It was very impressive, but the lure of a stick was just too great. Given the choice I’m sure regardless of the expensive equipment we provide, most children are happy with a stick, a pile of stones, or a tub of water.
My eldest was obsessed with tiny stones when she was small. Everywhere we went she would stop to pick them up or take them home in her pockets. If we were in the garden she would make collections of little stones and spend hours moving them from one place to another. She was very young at the time but I never stopped her for fear that she may swallow them. I simply made sure I was sat nearby so that I could see what she was doing.
filling eggs with stones and glass beads.
My 2-year -old loves sticks. We have 2 rules:
No sticks in the house
Do not point sticks at people’s eyes.
Sometimes they are magic wands, Sometimes fishing rods or sometimes simply something to carry around. Every stick is greeted with equal excitement.
All 3 children play for hours in the sand pit. When I first moved to the US I didn’t think the girls would like the grey, gravelly play sand they have here. I was wrong, they love it as much, if not more than the fine golden sand we had in the UK. Even at the park they chose to play in the dirty gravel rather than on the equipment.
The Theory of Loose Parts
In 1972 the architect Simon Nicholson devised the Theory of Loose Parts. It grew from the notion that all children love to interact with variables. Variables can be anything from materials and shapes to media such as gases and fluids and are used to discover, invent and have fun. The theory of loose parts is as follows
‘In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it. (Nicholson 1972)
Put simply, the playground with static play equipment will not offer a child the opportunity to discover and create their own scenarios as freely as one that is less predictable or restrictive and offers moveable objects that can interact with the child’s play. A swing is a swing but the gravel can be a home for a bug, fairy dust, a cake, something to draw in, a track for a car and other endless possibilities.
We have the perfect garden for playing with loose parts, with an abundance of trees, pine cones, stones, dirt etc. I decided to organise these a little to see if it would change the way the children played with them.
Storage for Loose Parts
We had an old clothes horse in the garden that was waiting for a purpose. I bought a few hanging baskets and hung them on the clothes horse along with a few other baskets I had found. I also clipped a variety of containers to the clothes horse using an underwear dryer (we also use this for drying paintings).
Using the clothes horse means that it is fully portable making it easy to move out of the rain or to the sandpit, paddling pool or lawn .
The Slide show illustrates some of the things we collected .
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Other ideas for loose parts that can be stored outdoors
sticks, twigs
glass beads, marbles, buttons, bells, beads
feathers
lolly sticks
pegs
acorns, conkers and seeds,
string
large things like pallets, tyres, flowerpots, fabric, boxes, pots and pans, tubes, guttering, bamboo canes, bricks, planks, logs, driftwood.
I love to see the children using their environment to stimulate imaginative and creative play. Here are some of my favourites.
We could build a boat
Carrying a rock to build a boat on the beach (the family were sailing). Moving heavy objects around was a key part of the play.
Come on row faster!
What happens when I bang the stick with a pebble?
The youngest became absorbed in pebbles and sticks, abandoning the project for a while.
Let’s ride on a horse together
Using loose parts with a large piece of clay
I’m putting them on the top
The finished product
1 year old transporting pistachio nut shells
moving from one container to another
Making a bed with magazines
Let’s put the stones in here and make a magic potion
My kids love messy activities but sometimes it’s just a little too much to handle indoors.
We decided to do some outdoor painting.
A small amount of paint, a squirt of washing up liquid and a few drops of water were mixed in our pallet.
I showed my 4-year-old how to blow bubbles with a straw. We talked about the difference between blowing and sucking.
What will happen if you suck the straw?
I’ll drink the paint. Yuck!
It’s like the wind, the wind blows but it doesn’t suck.
We tried to make the bubbles come over the top. We found that we needed to blow gently. They still didn’t quite bubble enough so we carefully added more water and tried again.
We placed the paper on top to make bubble patterns.
Next she made a bubbly hand print.
Time to get clean.
When the paint overflowed onto the deck she discovered that you could do something else with the straw.
The paint moves and makes patterns when you blow it with a straw.
Blowing the paint on the paper with the straw made a whole new type of painting.
This morning we were playing a game of Elefun, the game where fabric butterflies are blown from an elephant’s trunk for the children to catch in nets.
I know, let’s go and catch butterflies outside.
My 4-year -old quickly ran outside to look around the garden for butterflies. I explained that we needed to be quiet and still if we were to find any butterflies. Butterflies are attracted to red, yellow, pink and purple so we looked for flowers in these colours and waited.
I might find a butterfly, they like red and yellow so they might land in my net.
If we are very quiet we might catch a butterfly.
The hunt for butterflies was not very successful so they started to look for other creatures instead.
I’m trying to catch butterflies. what else can I find to put in my net?
No butterflies in here.
These leaves are really soft. We’re not allowed to pick them but we are allowed to stroke them.
No butterflies but lots of bees
They found a woodlouse (or roly-poly as the kids here call them) and lots of bees but no butterflies.
I know let’s make some butterflies out of paper.
I cut out some paper butterflies. The girls wanted to decorate them with stickers but I could only find white ones.
I know let’s draw patterns on the white ones. Now you hide them and we can find them and catch them in our nets.
We didn’t have any coloured stickers so the girls decorated white ones
The finished butterfly, without instruction my daughter decorated it with Symmetrical wings. ‘Butterflies never have 2 wings that are different’.
I hid them in the bushes. Found one! Now I have 1,2,3.4 butterflies, only 4 left to find.
My 5-year-old was petrified of the dark when she was younger. She couldn’t even bear to have the curtains open and see the blackness outside. Only later did we discover that she had really poor eyesight and her fear gradually decreased once she had glasses. It is so lovely to see the progression from a terrified toddler to an excited child who loves to play outside in the dark with a torch.
The ice is still there you just can’t see it.
Drop it in the water
I used to love frosty days when I was a kid because we could play on the way to school pretending to ice skate or breathe like a dragon. The same sense of wonder came over my girls when they looked out on a clear frosty morning. They dressed quickly and rushed outside to see if they could find ice . They found ice on top of the water table and in containers that we have on the deck.
Some of Roald Dahl’s books are a little gruesome for pre-schoolers but I have just started reading some of the less scary ones to my 4-year old. We are currently reading ‘James and the Giant Peach’, she has watched the film of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and we recently finished ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’.
No shadow
When we sit down there is a bit of a shadow.
investigating shadows near to the ground
In a bid to meet new people the girls and I sometimes join groups of other mums and their kids through meet up groups. Our latest venture was to Dr Maze’s Farm.
All 3 children play for hours in the sand pit. When I first moved to the US I didn’t think the girls would like the grey, gravelly play sand they have here. I was wrong, they love it as much, if not more than the fine golden sand we had in the UK. Even at the park they chose to play in the dirty gravel rather than on the equipment.
We had an old clothes horse in the garden that was waiting for a purpose. I bought a few hanging baskets and hung them on the clothes horse along with a few other baskets I had found. I also clipped a variety of containers to the clothes horse using an underwear dryer (we also use this for drying paintings).
My kids love messy activities but sometimes it’s just a little too much to handle indoors.
This morning we were playing a game of Elefun, the game where fabric butterflies are blown from an elephant’s trunk for the children to catch in nets.
We didn’t have any coloured stickers so the girls decorated white ones
The finished butterfly, without instruction my daughter decorated it with Symmetrical wings. ‘Butterflies never have 2 wings that are different’.
I hid them in the bushes. Found one! Now I have 1,2,3.4 butterflies, only 4 left to find.
Right from the Start 