We had such a fun water day. The kids really got into the water play and spent several hours happily splishing and splashing. What a wonderful way to spend a cold, rainy day.
We started the day talking about water. How it feels, smells, taste, sounds, and what it looks like.
The kids had a lot to say; wet, cold, rain, see through, warm.
I then invited them to the table where I told them we would be doing some water play.
Imagine their surprise when they found this waiting,
They laughed and giggled and called me silly. They told me I had made a mistake and where was their water. This opened the conversation to the different forms water can take~snow, rain, ice, steam.
While we talked about how the ice was water, just in a different form it gave the ice time to start to melt, so I turned the children's attention back to our icy snowmen and the small pools of water forming beneath them.
I poured warm water into their sensory tubs and allowed the kids to play in the water, drawing their attention to the changes taking place with our snowmen.
The kids had many words for what they were experiencing. It was lovely to sit back and listen to their thoughts.
"Brrr, mine's making my hands cold."
"My ice is getting little."
"Look how little my ice is now, Ms. Pamela."
We talked about what had happened to the ice, how it wasn't gone but had simply changed forms, back into water. I showed them steam coming from a pot of boiling water, and we talked about how the steam was water too.
We sat the water tubs aside to take a look at colored ice.
I made these using a seasonal Jello-O mold, and food coloring. Very simple.
It was time to spring a surprise on the kids~ice painting.
The children found this fascinating. I had to set these pages aside before they rubbed holes in them and give them more paper to continue to ice paint.
I brought their water tubs back to the table. I asked the children what they thought would happen when we put the colored ice into their water.
Both understood it would make their water cold again, but neither guessed it would turn their water colors.
They were amazed as their water started to change colors.
We talked about how the water slowly changed colors as the ice melted~how the ice wasn't disappearing but was, instead, turning back into water. The color change allowed them to better understand this concept.
Now it was time to talk about where water comes from.
This is a very simple experiment. Fill the bottom of a glass with warm water. Spray a shaving cream "cloud" on top of the water. Squeeze a few drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream and sit back and watch. The food coloring will slowly make it's way down through the shaving cream and start to "rain" into the class of water.
Waiting and watching for the rain.
We talked about how water is important to every living thing. How nothing could or would grow without water. We then talked about the different animals that live in the water.
Fisher Price has a wonderful toy the children love and play with every day, most of the day, in fact.though not always as it was intended.
This lovely toy has an animal for every letter of the alphabet and a play mat where the children match the animal with their beginning letter and are rewarded with the sound the animal makes and the letter it starts with.
We visited our Fisher Price ABC zoo set and sorted through the animals that lived in the water, threw in a polar bear for good measure then came back to our water tubs, animals in hand.
The children spent more than an hour playing with their animals in the water, and though the floor got an extra mopping, it was well worth the effort.
After so much wet and wild learning it was time for lunch and a nap.
Lasagna, salad, berries, garlic bread, milk, then time to rest.
When we woke from our nap the children were clambering to get back out their water tubs. I made a deal with them. They practice writing their name and their letter Ww, and I would let them spend the rest of the afternoon at their water tubs.
We water colored a large W after practicing writing our Ww, and then, good to my work, we spent the rest of the afternoon slashing in our water.
Floor mopping number three, but the laughter filling the room made it well worth the time and effort.
See you tomorrow,
Ms. P
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