When in Rome, do as the Romans do...

Today is my birthday. And while many women of a certain age may try to keep that on the down low, not me. I knew it would be party central! Thats how things are done in preschool. And when in Rome, you should do as the Romans do!

When I got there, there was a happy birthday note in my box from a school age girl that left for school before I got there. Then when I walked into my class, they all jumped out and yelled happy birthday, then sang to me :) I got a gift from my boss, along with flowers and a cupcake. My coworker made me a cake and gave me a handful of dark chocolate candy bars (she knows me well!). The class all drew me happy birthday pictures, then several of them also painted me pics after I got there. I got hugs galore (maybe the best part). After the school agers got back, they made brownies and gave me one, sang to me, and gave me a card.

I love working with these people and kiddos <3

Now, off to dinner with my girlie and a friend. Perfect ending to a good day :)

Surface tension

Yesterday we experimented with surface tension. I poured about a quarter inch of evaporated milk onto a pan and dripped some food color on it. Then the kiddos had a Dixie cup of dish soap and a toothpick. The process was to dip the toothpick in the soap, then into the center of a drop of color to see what happens. The soap changed the surface tension, and the colors swirled all around. At the end, we had a beautiful swirly pan of milk. They really enjoyed chasing the colors around the pan.

One of our other activities was "magic touch bags." These were a mixture of water, cornstarch and a bit of color. Once that was mixed, I added some oil. The cornstarch created a suspension with the water, but not the oil, so there was a blue, opaque liquid, and the oil. They would seem to come together, only to separate when left alone. They were a fun sensory experience when taped to a tray to use our fingers to draw lines and swirls on the bag.

We also had a lot of fun dancing ourselves silly :) The Cha Cha Slide is a favorite of our group, as well as some of Hap Palmer's active songs. Dancing is a great way to channel some excess energy. Our kiddos like it when the music is on my ipod, as that means they can jump around, because jumping makes our CD player skip and jump :)

Chromatography

Wow! Two posts in one day! We were busy today!

One of our centers was a less hands on, more observational, exploration of chromatography...the separation of colors. We used coffee filters cut into strips, and markers. As you can see in the picture, we made big dots at the narrow end of the strip, then we draped it over the edge of a dish of water so the very end was touching the water. The filter paper absorbed the water and wicked it through the marker spot. Depending on the kind of marker, we had colorful results.

The Sharpies, being permanent, really didn't wick. But the other markers, a variety of brands of watercolor markers, had different results. We actually had two browns of different brands, and they showed to be made of slightly different colors...like blue! And the pink had purple in it! And the black also had blue!

Now we just need enough sun here in NW Washington to do a similar experiment with a prism and light refraction. Maybe later this spring...

Ooblick

Today we played in ooblick, which is a non-Newtonian fluid. What does that mean? That it has the properties of both a solid and a liquid. And it is super easy to make. In our old chafing pan, I dumped a whole box of cornstarch. I added several drops of yellow food color. Then I gradually mixed in 1 1/2 coffee cups of water (don't you love my precise measuring system?), using a fork to chop up the lumps. It looked disconcertingly like scrambled eggs in reverse...first chunky, then liquidy smooth.

One of the kids asked me what I was making. I told her I was making a mess. Which was partly true...it was a future mess of theirs. They played in it as part of our centers. There were a couple forks in the bin, and hands. They rubbed it, scooped it, rolled it in balls and watched it melt over and over. And, of course, splattered it all over the table. The most fun is had when the biggest mess is made. Lucky for me, it is pretty easy to wipe/sweep up.

Playdough

Today, the kids in my class (all three of them...it was a holiday, you know) played with the new batch of play dough I made on Friday (after the boy got sick on the batch I had made Thursday). This isn't your normal play dough...it is chunky. I found a reference to adding rock salt to the play dough in place of a portion of the table salt (theteachertom.com). I replaced about half.

We have been discussing what it is in the dough that makes it chucky. Many suggested ice. We discussed that ice would make the dough squishy as it melted (I need to get an ice cube and sacrifice a chunk of dough to observation). Crystals, beads, and diamonds were also suggested. Earlier today, we did some salted watercolor art (watercolor on fingerpaint paper, then sprinkle table and rock salt on it...see what happens). While we were looking at the play dough later, I asked if the chunks looked familiar. One of them realized that they looked like the rock salt. We will see if they remember that tomorrow :)

So we spent our time flattening, smooshing, squishing, cutting, pinching, and rolling our new chunky dough. In other words, we had fun.

Here I am!

While discussing a blog written by a preschool teacher I recently started reading, a coworker mentioned I should write a preschool blog. So here it is. I doubt I will be as philosophical as the above mentioned blog, but I can share ideas, activities, successes and failures that I encounter in my daily adventures. And it may be more graphic than you want...like the boy who threw up all over my freshly made diamond play dough today. That was fun. But the family that brought their 7 week old baby sister in to visit made the day a whole lot better. The little girl that was in my class before staying home with mommy and baby came in the door, saw me, and threw herself in my arms. One of the best things to happen all week, actually <3