Thursday, May 9, 2019

Preschool: Exploring Waterfalls

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

In my life before being a homeschool preschool momma, I was a public education teacher.
I taught 3rd, 4th, 6th grades (all subjects), and high school Art. You can read about those days here,  Creating "Wonder" in learning can be tough in public school, but it's one of my most favorite things to observe in my preschooler. 
As we explored waterfalls, I got to see that wonder again and again.  



We've been using Mother Goose Time as our preschool curriculum for almost 3 years, and this month is all about Bubbles, Boats, and Floats!
Our STEAM station on Waterfall Day suggested going outside to do this activity.  Anytime I can take learning outdoors, I try to do it!  Who says learning has to be at a desk inside all day anyway?

Grab some spray bottles and put different colored water in each one.  I put water in our bottles and added these liquid watercolors.  They are my FAVE, but you could definitely use food coloring.
Using primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) will lead to the best results, and a great experiment in color mixing!  I just used red (turned more pinkish) and blue since I only had 2 bottles.
I used some long copy paper and the kids got right to work spraying the top of the paper and watching the water drip down like a waterfall.


I love this picture below!  Look at them observing the paper... even little brother got in on it!  
They began to notice that the water kept going down the same path and eventually it tore.



They noticed the tear before I did.
"Why did it break?" our little friend visiting asked.
This led to a great discussion about how powerful water is!  

I wanted my girl and her little buddy to each have some artwork to hang on the walls at home, so I got out some watercolor paper- one for each of them and attached it to the fence just like the long piece of copy paper.  They then took turns spraying the papers and watching the water trickle down.


What did they learn?
-Water is powerful.  It can tear and break things.
-Water always goes down.
-Water likes to go down the same path over and over.
-When red and blue mix, it creates purple.


We had so much fun!
I am so thankful MGT has all these wonderful ideas I can pull from to create fun learning experiences for my kids (and their friends)!   Honestly, my brain is fried by the time they go to bed, and the thought of creating a lesson from scratch each and everyday makes that fried brain, spin.  

If you are looking to make learning fun, check out Mother Goose Time!
You can see our adventures daily on our Facebook page,
and if you are on Pinterest, you can follow me here or pin the image below. :) 




Happy Learning, friends!





2 comments:

  1. Love this! Great idea to use watercolor paper to save the art. #MGTblogger

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Stacy!! I keep watercolor paper around for lots of our art. It definitely holds up well :)

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