Tagged with 'Early learning'

Who doesn’t love a good snow globe? Each one is a spellbinding combination of swirling, swishing liquid, and falling glitter that is perfect for sensory play. As mesmerizing as they are, did you know that snow globes are actually an experiment regarding the scientific principle of viscosity?

Let’s apply the standard of viscosity by creating a Snowman Snow Globe. We’ll put it together and then explain why it works.

You will need the following:

• A water bottle (a clear glass water bottle was used here)
• Clear glue
• Tap water
• Glitter
• Black tape for the snowman’s top hat
• Markers, paper, and pipe cleaners to make the snowman face
• Craft items for the “floaters” inside the globe, like snowflakes, stars, buttons, or jingle bells

First, let’s get our snow globe looking like a snowman. Using a sharpie marker, draw on the eyes and buttons.

Second, you can draw on the carrot nose, but we used leftover orange sticky craft paper here.

Next, select a pipe cleaner to tie around under his carrot nose for a little scarf.

The man needs a top hat, right? Wrap the cap in black tape for his hat.

Now that he’s dressed and ready to go, squirt the clear glue into the bottle. We added more glue to one of our bottles. Will more thick glue make the glitter move slower or faster?

Next, sprinkle in your glitter and drop in the items that will float.

Now it’s time to watch the snow fly!

So what does viscosity mean for the snow globe?

The viscosity of a fluid is its relative “thickness.” Think of glue or maple syrup. Both are thick and slow. Viscosity is measured by its resistance to a stress factor. In the case of our snow globe, the stress is the water and shaking motion. Compared to the water, it is much thicker, slowing the fall of our glitter, snowflakes, and jingle bells.

Are you looking for a fun, screen-free activity for your little ones this holiday season? I highly recommend building Gumdrop Christmas Trees! The activity is inexpensive, has minimal setup, and is adored by people of all ages. Who doesn’t like incorporating candy into a project?!

Building structures from toothpicks and gumdrops is an excellent STEM activity incorporating science, learning, and math into play. All you need is a bunch of toothpicks and some spiced gumdrops. I had a hard time finding gumdrops locally (I was shocked since it is Christmas time!), so if you run into that issue, mini marshmallows will also work just as well.

I laid the supplies on the table and told my girls that we would try and build Christmas trees. They are only three and five years old, so they needed some advice on getting started. I explained that they first needed to build a base, and then after that, they would just add to it as they saw fit.

We talked and walked through the base building together. After that, they caught on to the process and began constructing their trees!

As the building continued, the girls would point out if the structure was wobbling, and I would show them how they could add support with more toothpicks.

Finally, all that was left was adding a yellow gumdrop star at the top.

This was a fun project and a wonderful way to incorporate a screen-free STEM activity into the holidays. If your children are a bit older, you can even set up a competition to see who can build the tallest or most elaborate tree. For younger kids, just providing the toothpicks and gumdrops will create an awesome fine motor STEM activity. Regardless of age, this is a fun project to do together as a family. It’s something that both kids and adults are sure to enjoy!

I’m sure by now you have heard about how beneficial “STEM activities” are for children, but many of you may be wondering what that means or entails. STEM activities are anything that promotes curiosity and growth in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math.

Although those topics may sound pretty advanced for a preschooler or young child, there are many easy ways to incorporate a love for these concepts in the early years! Curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking are at the heart of STEM! These are traits that the youngest child can be encouraged to explore.

One fun topic that we’ve been interested in lately is coding! I would have never imagined that my three and 5-year-old would be excited about something that I thought was so complex, but boy was I wrong. Their fascination began when we started playing with various imaginative play toys to teach them coding, our favorite being Botley the Coding Robot. They were instantly intrigued by the reactions that resulted from the commands they typed in!

I loved watching their little minds click as they realized that each command change would create a different outcome. To foster their new love for this concept, I began providing additional screen-free activities to help them become better at following patterns and various steps. Here is a fun, holiday-themed coding activity you can easily create for your little one.

Coding Candy Canes!

Pipe cleaners, pony beads, paper, and markers. Cut each pipe cleaner into three pieces and bend them into a candy cane shape. Next, select the colors or beads that you want to use. I recommend 2-3 colors for younger children, but you could use as many as you wish for an older child. Because the activity was for both of my daughters, I chose only red and green.

Lastly, take your paper and draw various candy canes on it, adding colored “bead dots” with your markers in the patterns or order you want your child to mirror.

Provide your child with pipe cleaner candy canes, beads, and paper. Ask them first to sort the beads into different color piles. Then, instruct them to create candy canes that match the ones on the paper. My girls loved this activity, and we hung the finished candy canes around our playroom as festive décor.

So there you have it: an inexpensive, low-prep, and screen-free way to introduce coding to your child! I hope that you found this informative and that it sheds some light on just how fun and easy STEM activities can be.

This time of year bursts with discovery and wonder, so why not make the most of it? Take a break from the hustle and bustle to enjoy this simple chemistry experiment that features everyone’s favorite scientific ingredients: vinegar and baking soda.

Kids never tire of seeing this classic base and solid reaction. No matter the shape it takes, watching those bubbles grow will always make your little chemist erupt with excitement. Here we make little “evergreens” to demonstrate this scientific standard of chemical reactions.

• Baking soda
• Food coloring
• A splash of water
• Paper plates
• Vinegar
• Glitter
• Eyedropper or pipette
• Bowl, spoon, and tray

First, pour 2 to 2 ½ cups of baking soda into the bowl. Feel free to scale these portions for the number of trees you want to make.

Next, add green food coloring and a splash of water.

Stir the mixture well. Add glitter for added sparkle. The mixture should be crumbly but should be able to pack tightly (similar to kinetic sand). The last thing you want it to be is soupy or clumpy.

Grab a white paper plate, and cut it in half.

Twist the plate into a cone shape. Tape the sides to keep the form.

Then pack the baking soda mixture into the cones. Be sure to pack it tightly—level off the top. 

Make another round of snow-capped trees without food coloring. Add confetti for a special reveal.

Place all the cones on a cookie sheet and keep them in the freezer for at least six hours.

When your chemists are ready, pull your trees from the freezer. Grab a pie plate or dish with sides high enough to contain the liquid but low enough for your kids to see the reaction up close.

Pour the vinegar into a cup and add a little green food coloring. Your trees will be a bit more brilliant green if you add food coloring to the vinegar.

Carefully unwrap your trees from the paper plate cone over the pie plate, so any crumbles are caught.

Create your “forest” on the pie plate. Then using the eyedropper or pipette, drip the vinegar over the trees. The fizzing begin immediately!

The vinegar reveals the hidden snowflakes and glitter.

Once the forest is melted down, grab a spoon and stir it up. It was decided that the mess look liked soup the Grinch would like.

Repeat with other trees – the excitement level remains the same for each melting, fizzy tree! Happy holidays!

Trimming the tree with toddlers and preschoolers is as tough as it sounds. So many shiny, pretty things to touch and hold! This year, let your little ones in on the decorating fun, and save your sanity with a little learning tree of their own!

A three- or four-foot tree is plenty big. Put it on a sturdy stand so it’s sure not to tip, and place it in your playroom or other open space. Then turn this time-honored tradition into a fun, family learning activity by decorating the tree with child-safe ornaments made of everyday objects, like the Learning Resources Back in Time Dinosaur Counters.

We turned this colorful set of 72 dinosaurs into props for our holiday-themed lesson by wrapping flexible ornament hooks around each one, then hanging them on the tree. Once they’re hung, there are many ways to learn and play this holiday!

1. Color Learning

With all the dinos hung in the tree, challenge your child to find and remove all the orange ornaments, then all the blue, green, red, yellow, and purple in turn.

2. Counting

Once the dinos are down, take a careful look at each pile. Which one is the biggest? Which one is the smallest? Be sure to use early math vocabulary words like more than and less than. Next, help your child count each pile, saying each number as you move that dinosaur aside.

3. Sorting

When you’re done counting, let your little one jumble up the piles into one giant, rainbow-colored dino dig. Then see if she can sort the piles by attribute. Try sorting first by color, then jumble them up again. Then try sorting by type of dinosaur, then by size. Sorting is an important early math skill, as it helps children begin to identify and group “like” objects.

4. Matching

Next, choose four different dinosaurs. Show them to your child one by one, and see how quickly he can find a matching dinosaur in a pile. Make sure the pairs are identical in both color and type of dinosaur.

5. Letter Learning

Preschoolers can practice their letters with this dino-covered learning tree, too! Place the dinos back in the tree, and then challenge your pint-sized paleontologist to find all the dinosaurs whose color starts with the “O” sound, then the “Yeh” sound, the “Buh” sound, and so on.

6. Fine Motor Skills

When the learning and fun are done, you still have one last chance to slip in some developmental practice! Ask your child to place the ornaments back on the tree, working those fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.