Thursday, May 14, 2015

Invitation to Explore Land, Air, and Water

Land, Air, and Water Preschool Sensory Activities

It is so wonderful to watch little ones exploring their world. I invited My Firefly to play with air, water, and land on a tray. She created the layers of rocks, sand and clay, and soil in a tube; tried to find air in an empty tube; compared and learned to describe rocks; played with water. You can also find our land, air, and water sorting here: Letter G is for Globe.


Invitation to Explore the World on a Tray

Pictured below, the tools and materials we used. The test tubes with stands, a magnifying glass, a beaker, an eyedropper are from the preschool science lab set found here (Amazon affiliate links): Learning Resources Primary Science Lab Set. My Firefly collected some sand, soil, clay, and rocks in the backyard. We washed our rocks - so I served them in a play stainless steel colander from this set: Melissa & Doug Let's Play House! Pots Pans Set. The smallest paint brush we have is for painting rocks with water.


Finding Air

I asked My Firefly to find what's inside the empty container closed with the lead (pictured below). She didn't give me an answer "air" still. We had to review:
  • that air is all around us,
  • we cannot see air (even with the magnifying glass),
  • we could feel air moving during our walk the day before because it was very windy,
  • people and all living things need air.


Water Transfer Activity with the Eyedropper

Water is My Firefly's favorite. She finally learned how to use an eyedropper and currently loves these type of activities. She transferred water from the beaker to the test tube "without any spilling". We placed water next to the container with air and named both again.

 

The Layers of the Earth Sensory Exploration

  • What can we find under our feet? (Grass and soil)
  • What is under the soil? She followed instructions and placed some rocks, then clay and sand, than top soil.
  • Is there any water in the ground? (The answer was "no"). I had to explain that we can find water everywhere on Earth, and she added some water into her tube.


Rocks Playing and Exploration

We observed and compared our rocks. Tried to describe some rocks - an activity in progress.
  • color: we tried to name colors, then used a magnifying glass and a cell phone camera's zoom feature to discover that each rock has several different colors,
  • texture: rough or smooth, cool to touch,
  • size: we had small and big rocks,
  • weight: heavy.


The very fun activity My Firefly loved: painting rocks with a paint brush and water.


Imprints, layers and spots of different colors, cracks and interesting textures - we discovered the whole new world of rocks using the zoom feature on the cell phone!


Our invitation to explore land, air, and water was just in time for the bigger discoveries in the parks this summer! You can also find our land, air, and water sorting here: Letter G is for Globe.

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3 comments:

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