Toddler STEM: Five Senses

This was definitely a popular theme! We had seven stations:

I hung around a bit to talk about refraction - the bending of light, which causes us to see things differently. When kids had glasses on, I talked about how the eye doctor measures that when he is seeing what kind of glasses they need.

I used various baking oils and spices. 

Afterward I emptied them out in the trash can next to my desk. Lemon and peppermint seem to be vying for most potent. It's an interesting combination.

I didn't want to take chances with allergies, so "taste" was just an art project.

This one took some demonstrating, but it's fun to watch people's faces when they do it!

Basically, we normally hear sound waves as they travel through air (a gas), but in this experiment the sound waves are travelling along the string (a solid), and they sound quite different!

Wednesday's group would have been quite happy if I had just put this one out:

Of course, it didn't stay in that tub for long.

My keys came up missing, and a couple little girls decided they must be in the cloud dough (they weren't, but they made a VERY thorough search!)

Cloud dough is pretty easy to dust off, for the most part, but it does go EVERYWHERE.

Just a few swipes with a stiff broom, though, and:

The second (blurry - dangit) picture was taken literally less than a minute after the first. It looks like an awful mess, but it cleans up quickly!

Lots of fun, and I think some learning happened. 

Now, if I could just find those KEYS...