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Erupting Volcanoes

4/27/2012

Today we made two different kinds of volcanoes for the kids to watch "erupt." We did the fairly traditional baking soda and vinegar kind inside a playdough volcano...

This one is always fun for the kids and we had to "erupt" it several times, as they all kept calling, "do it again!" :)

We also tried a new type of volcano demonstration. For this one, I put a chunk of wax in the bottom of a glass bowl and then covered it with sand. I then added cold water and placed the bowl over a stove burner. (I raised mine up using a metal cooling rack because the bowl is not for use on direct heat).

As the bowl and its contents heat up, the wax starts to melt and come to the surface, just like hot molten rock comes to the surface of the earth. It also then floats on top of the water layer, similar to how the volcanic ash floats in the air after an eruption. If you click through the above link, she has much better pictures. Our sand kept making the water dirty as it started to boil, so unless you caught it right away, it was harder to see. I liked this one because it is so much more like a real volcano, though the one drawback is that it was harder for the kids to see since it had to be up on top of the stove. Anyway, I think the kids had fun with both of our volcanoes today!

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Making tracks

4/17/2012

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We had a lot of fun making all kinds of tracks today! We gathered up all of the cars, trucks, planes, tractors, and anything else we could find that we thought might make some good tracks, and then drove them through our paint and right onto our papers. After we were all done making the tracks, we had just as much fun with a mini "carwash" to clean up our mess! :)

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Ss is for Star Stickers...Ss!

4/9/2012

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Today we got out a few Star Stickers, and our Scissors and used them to decorate a letter S. Peeling and placing stickers is another one of those really fun fine motor skill activities for kids, and they even decided to make some great patterns (which is great pre-math work) with their star stickers, too, all on their own. And, it was a fun way to learn about the shape of the letter S!

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Dancing Raisins

4/5/2012

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We did a fun science experiment with some Raisins....and got to watch them "dance!" We started out with a clear cup of 7-up and dropped in a few raisins. The carbon dioxide forms bubbles of gas and those bubbles attach themselves to the raisins and make them float. When the bubbles pop at the surface, the dense raisins fall back to the bottom of the cup. This up and down motion caused by the bubbles makes the raisins appear to be dancing. FUN! Just to try it, we then put a few raisins into a cup of plain water. Hmmm, no dancing this time. That's because the raisins are more dense than the water, so they sink to the bottom, and without the carbon dioxide bubbles to attach and lift them up, the bottom is where they stay.

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Rainbow collage

4/3/2012

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We started a fun project this morning involving old magazines and a rainbow. I had the kids flip through some magazines and find the colors of the rainbow. Instead of scissors today, if they found a patch of red, orange, yellow, etc., they just ripped it out. Scissors can be very tricky for little hands to maneuver when trying to get something specific cut out and ripping still provides great fine motor practice, and it's a lot of fun, too! :)

Once they had a few pieces ripped out, they could take them over to our big piece of paper on the wall, and add their piece to what would eventually become our rainbow. It was fun to hear them notice and categorize which colors they were more commonly finding. They noticed that the green had the most, closely followed by blue. And when all of the other colors had been better represented than the one or two little scraps of orange, a few of them set out to help orange catch up. :)
I told the kids this morning that this can be a continuing project for at least the rest of the week, if they are interested. The sun shining outside this morning was too tempting for our work inside to go on for too long, so here is what we got finished before heading outside. I am hoping they will want to come back and add more to it throughout the week, but considering this paper is almost 5 feet long, I'd say that's pretty good for one sitting! :)

And here is how it ended up after a few more days of work! :)

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Erupting Volcanoes

Making tracks

Ss is for Star Stickers...Ss!

Dancing Raisins

Rainbow collage

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