Frost Paint

Want to add a little science to your art? Try making Frost Paint! The recipe is simple –water and Epsom salt- but the result is amazing. Crystals will form right before your eyes!

Add ½ cup Epsom Salt (found in the pharmacy section) to ½ cup boiling water. That’s it! Boiling the water is the key to make sure the salt dissolves completely in the water.

• Draw a picture on a piece of colored construction paper.
• Paint over it with your Frost Paint.
• When it dries, the water will evaporate and leave the long, thin Epsom salt crystals. It will look like frost on your drawing.
• Do some experimenting. Try it with a larger amount of salt in the water. How is the result different?
• Try adding food coloring to the water. Do you think it will make colored crystals?
• What do you think would happen with table salt or rock salt? Try it!

Ice Explorations

Ice explorations are wonderful science experiments for children. Watching something change through freezing and thawing, adding salt to alter the way it melts, and dripping colored water on it to see the path the drips take, all provide engaging ways for children to play with science. Try freezing small objects in ice cubes and give children tools to free them (be sure to use goggles!). Try freezing water in large containers such as an orange juice carton or water balloon so children can see the air bubbles trapped in the middle, or try freezing water in unusual shapes by using a rubber glove or other plastic molds. By adding droppers for children to transfer colored water, you are also providing an activity that strengthens fine motor skills.

Easy Homemade Play Dough

What you need:

•1 cup flour

•½ cup salt

•1 cup water

•1 tablespoon cooking oil

•food coloring or tempera

Optional: 1 tablespoon cream of tartar or alum

(Cream of tartar gives the play dough a silky texture. Alum is a preservative that will allow your play dough to be kept longer.)

What you do:

Mix all of the solids in a bowl. Mix all of the liquids in a sauce pan. Add the solid mixture to the pan and cook over medium heat until the mixture becomes thick like clay. Let it cool, and it’s ready to use. Store in an air tight container. Try adding glitter or sand for texture.

Building with Gum Drops

Want to try an unconventional building material for play? Gum drops, marshmallows, thin pretzel sticks, spaghetti and straws are all great building materials that challenge children to try making structures in a new way.  The softness of the gum drops and marshmallows make them easy to work with as connectors, and the ability to break or cut the pretzels, spaghetti and straws means that children can easily adjust how long they want the pieces to be.

Besides being fun, working with unconventional materials helps children to add more experimentation to their building play. Sometimes a small marshmallow is better than a large one, and although spaghetti is lighter, it also breaks easier than straws or pretzels. This encourages problems solving skills and achieving success through trial and error. In addition to being great for learning, their structures are also delicious!

Wrapping Paper Tubes Make Great Ramps!

With the holiday season upon us, it is the perfect time to collect empty gift wrapping tubes to use at home or in the classroom. Have you ever put your ear up to one? The tubes are great for exploring sound and can also be fun to explore looking through, but perhaps my favorite use for cardboard tubes is making ramps!

Simply cut the tube in half down its length, and voila, you’ve created an instant ramp ready for cars, balls or anything else you want to try. Use a little masking tape to secure it to something tall like a chair or shelves and watch how far the ball rolls. Try changing the height and see if you can get the ball to roll farther. Try taping more tubes together to make an even longer ramp. Slide it through a shorter tube to make a tunnel. The possibilities for experimentation are endless!

Toddler Science: It’s Never too Early to Start Exploring!

It could be argued that toddlers are almost always doing science…listening to sounds as they bang two blocks together, playing in the sink as they “wash their hands,” exploring the textures of food and toys, or watching what happens when they drop something over and over again.

For young children, science is learned through play, hands-on, open exploration of things they can look at, touch, smell, hear and sometimes taste. Science is often best when it relates directly to their world (rocks, leaves, water, worms, clouds) instead of topics they usually have had no experience with (rain forests, oceans, space).

Science is also best when adults can see the world from a toddler perspective and understand what they might find interesting…adding sand to homemade play dough to change the texture, switching out water toys to give a new way to pour, providing a bunch of cardboard boxes for stacking and hiding things in, or collecting bugs in containers so they can look more closely.

We have a lot to learn from toddlers. Every day is a new day, full of wonder and curiosity. They are fascinated by all of the small things adults take for granted…the feel of sand pouring between your fingers, a butterfly landing on a flower, the zooming sound of cars going down the road.

The way to lead great science explorations with toddlers is to rediscover your own wonder about the world. Get in touch with your inner toddler…pay attention to sounds and textures, play with water the next time you wash your hands, ask questions, model curiosity and excitement, notice how things roll and move. Science does not have to be complicated. All you need to do is explore the world along with them.

PNC Pledges Additional $250 Million to Grow Up Great

PNC Financial Services Group  has announced a ten-year, $250 million extension of its Grow Up Great early childhood education initiative (http://www.pncgrowupgreat.com), which has benefited more than a million children since its launch in 2004 and has awarded $40 million in grants to date through the PNC Foundation.

As part of its re-commitment to the effort, PNC also announced a $7 million expansion of its preschool science initiative, which was launched in 2009. The competitive grant program will fund regional science centers and nonprofit organizations that give children opportunities for inquiry-based science learning and experience-related activities that are both educational and fun.

4-C, in conjunction with the Louisville Science Center, is now in its third year collaborating a local effort under the PNC Grow Up Great with Science initiative and is working with four partnering early childhood facilities (California Area Family Development Center, St. Benedict Center for Early Childhood Education, Friends School and Dawson Orman Education Center) to embed science exploration in their daily programming through professional development trainings, resources, parent education, science festivals and technical assistance classroom visits from an early childhood specialist.

Professional Development Science Trainings developed under this initiative are now available to any child care provider as a part of the regular 4-C training calendar including Face to Face Trainings, Independent Study Modules and On-Site Trainings tailored for each facility. For more information on how you can incorporate science into your program, type “science” into the search engine on the left to read our latest Science Blog or contact Robin Schotter, Early Childhood Science Specialist at robin-schotter@4cforkids.com.

Why Preschool Benefits the Brain

In the current issue of Psychology Today is a fascinating article about why preschool benefits the brain. It cites a 1930 hypothesis which Nobel-prize winning ethologist and zoologist Konrad Lorenz tested to see if geese instinctively followed their mother or if it was a learned trait. It provided early evidence of critical periods of development and learning. Preschool provides necessary skills which are essential to getting a job when children reach adulthood.

Visit psychologytoday.com for this article and many others relating to the importance of early childhood development.

Wonderful Worms

Earthworms don’t have eyes, ears or noses, and instead of lungs, they breathe through their skin. But more than just learning some fascinating facts, bringing live earthworms into the classroom gives children an up close encounter with a gentle, harmless animal.

I recently brought earthworms to Yvonne Fisher’s classroom at Dawson Orman Education Center. After reading a story and practicing moving like earthworms during circle time, we spread out some newspaper and let them crawl across the table. The children squealed with delight as they watched the earthworms stretch and squeeze their bodies. Almost every child was willing to pet an earthworm, and most also picked one up and laughed as it tickled their hands.

Earthworms are everywhere and are very beneficial to plants. In one yard of earth, there can be thousands of earthworms!  Go for a walk and hunt for them. Try digging in the dirt or lifting up rocks and leaf litter. Look on the sidewalk after a heavy rain and model good stewardship by returning them to some dirt where they can dig back underground. Most of all, let children know that they don’t have to be afraid of something just because it moves!

 A word about earthworm care:

Remember that they breathe through their skin and need a damp environment; so keep a spray bottle handy, but avoid letting them “swim” in water. They can drown too! They eat dirt and decaying leaves, so if you plan on keeping them a few days, be sure to provide them with food.

 Literature connections:

• Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser
• Garden Wigglers by Nancy Loewen
• An Earthworm’s Life by John Himmelman
• Earthworms by Claire Llewellyn and Barrie Watts

Onion Peel Eggs

Instead of dyeing eggs this April with a kit, try turning the craft into a science experiment by using onion peels. This is a traditional German way to dye eggs that I learned from my grandmother. She was even featured in a local paper back in the 1970s.

The process is easy, and there are many ways to play around with the concept. You will need yellow or brown onion peels, but you can try other colors for different results, although purple peels do not result in purple eggs. You can also lay other items on the eggs, such as a clover leaf, before adding the peels to create images on the eggs. The results are beautiful, interesting and unpredictable.

What you need:

• yellow or brown onion peels
• light colored eggs
• string

 What you do:

1. Soak the onion peels in water just long enough for them to soften.

2. Wet the eggs and wrap them in a layer of peels. Wrap and tie with string.

3. Boil the eggs for 12-15 minutes.

4. Unwrap them; dry them; and shine them with shortening or oil.