Tasty Volumes of Juice: Measure Liquids Math Activities for Kids.

ice Math: Volume, Taste, Color, and Mix

Our introduction to volume was refreshing and fun. We used our senses to explore juice drinks, measured them, and created our new favorite mixes.

STEM challenge: How the volume of juices effect the taste of the mixture?

For these activities we used our new favorite juice drinks: Santa Cruz Organic. They are lightly sweetened, refreshing, and made with organic fruit juices and natural flavors. I received this product for free from the sponsors of the Green Moms Meet program who received it directly from the manufacturer. All experiences and opinions are my own.

Juice Observations and Games: Notice Colors, Taste, Smell, Guess the Sugar Amount 

We tried to use all five senses to compare and contrast the juices:

• Notice and describe the colors: light and dark yellow and red.
• Discovering the fruits: observe the smell and taste, the ingredients the juice is made of.
• Reading the label: a short environmental print practice (we found the pictures of fruits and read some words that caught the eye).
• Guess the Taste game: one player closes eyes and takes a sip; then tries to guess the juice.
• Guess the Sugar game. We were able to find out that lemonade has more sugar than other juices; discussed how too much sugar is not healthy and brought a container of drinking water to the table.
• Introduction to volume and juice transfer activity.
• A new discovery: Juice (as any liquid) takes the shape of its container!

For these activities we used:

• A tray to collect spills, containers of different shapes and capacity, syringes and pipettes.
• Santa Cruz Organic Pomegranate Agua Fresca juice drink. It is red in color, contains organic pomegranate and lemon juice, 14g of organic sugar.
• Santa Cruz Organic Lemonade. It is light yellow in color, contains organic lemon juice and juice concentrate, organic natural lemon flavor, 22g of sugar. 
• Santa Cruz Organic Mango Passion Fruit Agua Fresca juice drink. It is bright yellow in color, has a pleasant smell, contains organic mango puree, organic passion fruit concentrate, organic lemon juice and natural flavors, 14g of sugar.
• For more information about Santa Cruz organic juice drinks, visit http://www.santacruzorganic.com/. Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/santacruzorganic

Juice Math: Liquids and Measurements

We found numbers 1 to 3 and letters "ml" on the syringe. Then we used syringes to measure the volume.

Pictured below, since the cups are the same shape and size, and liquid takes the shape of its container, we can compare the volume and fill the cups to about the same volume in the cups.

The art of juice drinks: how to make a perfect mix? How the volume of juices effect the taste of the mixture?

The two questions above turned out to be inspiring! Now we pay more attention to the choice of fruits, and what we drink, and the healthy choices we can make...

And we are getting more creative with the flavors of drinks, mixtures, and popsicles - that is a fun (and hopefully ongoing) process for this summer!

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Smart Beavers Water Play and Engineering for Preschoolers

Build a Dam Like a Beaver

We recycled a plastic table cloth to build a river in the yard. It turned out to be a fun engineering activity, river exploration, and a water play. We were able to explored the water flow hands-on: kids adjusted the "river" easily for different outcomes with this quick set up. They attempted to engineer a simple dam with supplies at hand - a great problem solving activity since the effectiveness of their structures was easy to see.

Our beaver craft can be found here: Happy Beaver Earth Day Craft for Kids from My Bright Firefly.

Beaver books we loved (Amazon affiliate links):
Little Beaver and the Echo
Turtle's Race with Beaver
Beaver Is Lost

Beavers Water Play

To create a river, we rolled four pool noodles in a table cloth and secured with tape.

A small choice of toys and supplies was offered for explorations and building: plastic fish and ducks, rocks, sticks, soil with clay, three buckets of different sizes, two watering cans of different sizes and shapes, a gardening hose, portable toy water wheels.

Water wheels are optional for these activities. Amazon affiliate links:
Small World Toys Sand & Water - Water Wheel
American Plastic Toy Sand and Water Wheel

Engineering challenge: How to position the pool noodles to keep the water inside?

Engineering challenge: How to position the river for the fastest flow of water? For the slowest flow? For creating a lake with the water flow underground? (We tried different angles of river on the grassy slope.)

Beavers' activities change the water habitat. Kids played with plastic fish and ducks helping them down the stream.

Engineering challenge: create a water flow for the ducks to go down the stream.

Engineering challenge: create a dam that can stop the flow of water and form a small "pond" for beavers.

It was an interesting process of attempting to stop the flow of water using rocks, sticks, leaves, and soil with clay. It is a process since building the dam is not an easy task. Two of the best solutions for the day were found:

1. Position the river in a V shape to collect the water at the bottom of the "V".
2. Place a bucket inside the river, place the ducks inside, and start filling the bucket with water until the overflow will send ducks down the river (or just dump the bucket: whichever comes first).

I call it a success for the day!

A to Z Animal Series

For the month of June, kid bloggers are working together to bring you A to Z Animal series. Some fun ideas for kids activities and crafts are coming!

Albatross, Beaver, Crab, Duck, Elephant, and so on. You can find all the links here: A to Z Animal Series from Teach Me Mommy.

The first article in the Animal series is The Bird with the Biggest Wingspan: Albatross Craft from Preschool Powol Packets.

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