Rainbow Rice Ocean Sensory Bin

When possible, I love to make sensory play bins for my 3.5 year old girl.

Most of the time our bins match the theme we are studying with our Preschool curriculum,
Mother Goose Time.  I haven't made her a new bin in the last 3 months.  #momfail.

However, our next month study is OCEAN COMMOTION and my girl LOVES her some Octonauts and ocean animals.  I knew I had to make her a bin for this theme!

SUPPLIES

big container of some sort (we used this one)

rice (we bought a 20 lb bag but only used about 1/2)

liquid watercolors (we used these) or food coloring

 Gallon sized Ziploc bags 

(we only used 2 bags by going in this order: 1 bag: yellow, orange, red   2nd bag: green, blue, purple)   Trays or wax paper to dry your rice colors

Ocean animals (we found this one with 40 pieces for $10 at Walmart!)

DIRECTIONS

Of course I had to have my big helper assist in making her sensory bin!

• She measured 4 cups of rice and placed it into a gallon sized Ziploc bag. 
• Then I did a few squirts (it does not take much) of the liquid watercolor.
• Zip it shut, hand it to your big helper and let them shake it up!
• If your rice is still white in areas, add another squirt or two of your water color. 
• After doing the yellow, my girl wanted to squirt in the color, so I let her but I didn't really show her how to do it and she squeezed a ton of orange into the rice! It was drenched!  That tray had to dry outside.  I made sure to really show her how to put in the color on the next bag. 
• Pour out your rice onto trays, cookie sheets, or wax paper and spread out.

It takes no time at all for this to dry!

After the trays were dry (30 minutes or so), it was time to assemble our sensory bin.

Now I totally was going to make all the rice blue and green to symbolize water, but my girl has been into rainbow everything lately.  I figured the coral reef was a rainbow of colors, so it's perfect for our ocean bin.

No filter!  The liquid watercolors give intense beautiful color with just a few drops!

I poured each tray carefully so that the colors didn't mix.  I wanted my girl to do all the mixing during her play.  After I poured the rainbow of rice, she took out her animals one by one and named just about every single one.  And she didn't just say shark or whale... she knew it was an Orca or Humpback Whale.  She has learned so much from Octonauts...seriously. :)

These were $10 at Walmart and $24 on Amazon.

Isn't it beautiful!  We added a few scoops and bowls from her play kitchen, 

and once she had all her animals in place, it was time to play!

"Momma, will you make this walrus talk?"

She likes for me to pretend with her as we make the animals talk.
And that's what we did for most of the entire afternoon.  I love watching her imagination grow.

Today her ocean sensory bin looks like this:

Most of every animal in our Ocean Commotion unit is in this bin!

It's going to be an awesome month of MGT Preschool fun!



Happy Learning!

It's Slime Time: Galaxy Slime

Making Slime can be intimidating.

Do I really want this stuff in my house? What if it gets on the furniture or the carpet?

Ugh.... is it worth it?

YES!

We've been studying SPACE this month with Mother Goose Time and have had a "blast!" 

Our STEAM station on Galaxy day had us creating Galaxy Slime using liquid starch.

I did not have any liquid starch, so I found a recipe from here using saline solution.  This link also has a ton of different slime recipes we will be trying out in the future.

Here's what you need:

The number one ingredient is GLITTER! But this is the best kind of glitter because it stays IN the slime and not all. over. everything.

SUPPLIES

glitter (any kind), food coloring, clear glue, water, baking soda (not pictured), saline solution, bowls, and some kind of stirring utensil (I used Popsicle sticks I could throw away)

You can follow the directions here but I will give you a quick recap anyway...

My little helper and I each did a color of slime. 

DIRECTIONS

Into each bowl:

Mix 1/4 cup of clear glue and 1/4 water.  Stir together.

Add a few drops of food coloring.  Stir together.

Add 1/4 tsp of baking soda into each bowl. Break down clumps and stir together.

(I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Baking soda? What does that do?  Read about it here)

Add insane amounts of glitter!

 We added pink, green, and silver to our red slime, and black, blue, and purple to our blue slime.

Make sure you have added the glitter BEFORE the saline solution!

Final ingredient: 1/2 Tbsp of saline solution.  Stir together. 

It will start to pull away from the bowl, keep stirring, and then knead with your hands.  

If it's still a little too sticky add just a few DROPS of saline solution. 

We played with our slime as individual colors before starting to mix them together.

 

So much fun!

Her animals joined the SLIME TIME.  She kept saying that the giraffe needed "bandaids" and that is what the slime became. I love her little imagination.

As I watched her play, I realized what a great fine motor activity playing with slime is.

The pinching, stretching, pulling and manipulating of this stuff makes her have to do things with her fingers she normally might not do.

Not only did she help make the slime, but it kept her entertained for an hour while I dealt with baby brother.  And guess what?  It didn't get all over everything.  She was good about keeping it on her table and using her plastic toys to add to the slime time.  She loved this stuff. 

  As soon as daddy walked through the door, she jumped off the bed, ran yelling,

 "Daddy, we made something! We can play together!"

We stored our Galaxy Slime in a plastic Ziploc container.

I'm sure we will be playing with it some more today... and tomorrow... and the next day.

Join us on FACEBOOK for more adventures, books, and great activities to do with your littles.

Happy Slime-ing!

Cultivating Creativity with Mother Goose Time

How do you teach someone to be creative?

How do you foster the creativity of a student?

In a world of Pinterest and sharing and copying ideas, 

how on earth do you cultivate CREATIVITY?

According to English Oxford dictionaries Creativity is:
"The use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness."

Creativity includes using imagination, curiosity, risk-taking, wonderment, flexibility, experimentation, breaking of boundaries, and openness to new perspectives.

Creativity is a way of thinking 

not just arts and crafts.

Creativity is about the process not necessarily the product.

When my husband and I decided that I would teach preschool at home to our girl, I started to research Early Childhood education theories.  I am a trained teacher.  I graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a certifications to teach All-level Art and Generalist studies from EC-8.  I taught public school for 8 years; however I had never taught younger than 3rd grade.

As I researched preschool/homeschool lines of thinking (Charlotte Mason, Classical, ect...)
 I came across REGGIO EMILIA, which is a post I'd love to write for another day.  What I loved most about the Reggio Emilia approach was that the teacher doesn't necessarily teach.  She listens to the children.  What are their interests?  Then she creates areas that allows them to explore that interest and the children learn on their own.  Child-led learning and I was in love. 
This is what I wanted to be as an educator and a parent.  This is the kind of learning environment I wanted to provide for my girl.  I just didn't know how to do it exactly with a just turned 2 year old at the time.

Then I stumbled upon Mother Goose Time.
It allowed me to bring Reggio Emilia to my home.

MGT gives opportunities to explore and create in their Invitations to Create- inviting the child to use their own imagination to create after being inspired by a picture and materials set before them.
No ones work is supposed to look like the other's.

It's not copying- it's being inventive and inspired.

Above is Avaleigh hard at work creating her Earth.  Paint was not one of the materials listed, but when I asked her what she would like to use to go along with the paper provided, she asked for paint.  She used it like glue.  Carefully applying the paint to the back of torn pieces of blue and green paper and securely placing them on her paper plate.
I would never had done that.

MGT gives directions on how to create Make and Play crafts, but suggested taking it to the next level by allowing the child to PLAY with it as they saw fit.
Avaleigh asked for more stickers to make her telescope and placed some inside the tube.  Then she played with it around the house for the rest of the afternoon just observing things.
"I'm like Kwazi!" (Octonauts is her favorite show right now)

 

STEAM stations give the opportunity for children to role play and be inventive.
By creating a planetarium in your home with sheets and lights, kids become astronauts flying among the stars or they can pretend they are entering a cave of a giant bear.  Or setting out red paper and egg cartons in sand allows them to travel to Mars or make some delicious mud pies!
What kind of adventures will I get to hear my girl going on by just setting up areas for her to play?

Yes MGT is set up as a unit study instead of child-led interest, but all the units are definitely things my girl has wondered about, and it has so helped me in providing experiences with materials I would have never set before my girl.

This thought process is challenging for me, too!
It's forcing me to grow as an educator for sure, but also as a parent.  My patience grows as I bite my tongue from starting to tell her how I would do it. 

It's putting aside what I want her work to look like and just watching my girl use the materials to make what she wants to from them.  It's a time where I need to close my mouth and open my eyes, relax. observe, and ask her about her thinking.
Let her do all the learning.
Let her be creative.

With Mother Goose Time's help, I am cultivating creativity right here at home.



Follow our adventures on FACEBOOK.
Need great ideas?  I'm a PINTEREST junkie... follow me :) 

Preschool Astronomer

Astronomer.

That is what Avaleigh became this first week as we studied the SUN, the MOON, and STARS with our SPACE unit from Mother Goose Time.

Our week started with studying STARS and constellations.

MGT sent us these glow in the dark stars in a variety of sizes and Avaleigh had to match them to the correct size on the constellation.

We then did a STEAM station of punching out circles to be stars and then gluing them on black construction paper.  I then asked my girl which "stars" should be connected with a line of glue.  

We then poured silver glitter on the glue to create her constellations.  

She also worked on spelling her name.  She has come so far with her writing!

After her nap, we discussed how there are 3 main colors of stars, HOT Blue ones, and COOLER Red and Orange ones.  I sticky tacked the stars all over the house while she napped and drew 3 circles on her chalkboard table top.  She then went around the house and matched them to the correct category.

On our SUN Day, we only did the Make and Play craft which was creating a Sun Mask.  We also talked about the letter S.  She wasn't into doing much else and wanted to play outside so that's what we did :) 

Some days you just do what you can.

We had to add some glitter though!

However, the BEST day was MOON Day!

Avaleigh loves the moon. 

She searches for it every. time. we. go. outside. Every time.

She did the Make and Play Moon Rocks first.  Here is her Moon Rock bag with aluminum foil rocks inside.  We used this bag later outside for our Moon Rock Math Game.

 Afterwards, she worked on her My Little Journal cover.  It suggested to place the moon on the cover.  Avaleigh traced one of her play kitchen bowls.  I asked her if she wanted to color it and of course she said yes.  I was most surprised when she started drawing the moon's craters by drawing blue circles all over her moon.  I didn't suggest it at all.

  Then with my help she cut out her moon and glued it to her cover and wrote her name.

Now it was time to go outside and play our Math Moon Rock Game which you can read about here.

We had so much fun and it reinforced her counting skills so much!

This is just 3 days of our space unit!

Today after her quiet time (and my blogging time), we will really study Astronomers,

 and I'll probably sneak in our comet study as well.

Next week we start studying the ROCK planets so stay tuned here and on our facebook page!

It sure is fun becoming a Preschool Astronomer.

Preschool Moon Rock Math

Finally, we have seen the sun!  After weeks of gloom and rain, the most glorious days have arrived and we are soaking as much time outdoors as we can. 

So when our Mother Goose Time suggested a game called "Counting Moon Rocks" during our Space Unit, I tweaked it to be outdoors and it was perfect!  In fact, this game kept my girl busy for
 45 minutes straight!

Here's what we did...

I took the number cards suggested (0-14) and placed them on the wall outside.   You could place them on the ground or mix them all up and put them in a pile or in a container depending on if it's a windy day or not.

Astronaut Avaleigh then would turn over a card, any card, say the number outloud.

We then would "blast off" to the moon and collect moon rocks  using her Moon Rock bag 

(that we created earlier during our Make and Play time.  I'll post about that later...)

As she collected her moon rocks, she counted out loud placing 1 rock in the bag at a time.

This strengthens the math skill of one-to-one correspondence.

After she had gathered her moon rocks, we then bounded to the sand table, jumping like astronauts on the moon. 

Taking rock by rock out of her bag, we created a moon rock path in the sand while counting our rocks as we placed them.  Then it was time to "blast off" back to the number wall where it then became "Mommy Astronaut's turn."

Avaleigh decided that her lion needed to walk along the moon rock path.

45 minutes later, we had completed all our numbers and created the moon rock path below. 

"Let's play some more," she said as I was picking up the cards.

Isn't that what every educator wants to hear after some intense learning game has finished?

Although we didn't play again right after, it is my plan after naps and quiet time to head back outside and play Moon Rock Math some more.

I am so thankful for Mother Goose Time and the ideas they supply us with and the memories and learning that are taking place right here at home.

What are some of your favorite learning games to play outdoors?