Toddler STEAM - Animals

This week we had our first Toddler STEAM of the year. We have been learning about different classes of animals, so this program tied some of that together. Since we have so many new faces, I went 'easy' this time around, nothing terribly messy.

Although I did have dead things.

Feathers, porcupine quills, and a few different pelts. Magnifying glasses to take a look at how the coyote's fur is different close to the skin, or how the feather parts fit together like Ziplocs. A few adults were squeamish, but the kids had no qualms.

Be a Bee! Use your proboscis (or an eye dropper) to transfer nectar (water) from flower to hive.

That can be a tricky fine motor skill to pick up, but this young lady was a pro!

She even matched the flowers. Totally planned.

Cutting out animal pictures to keep on hand, by the way, is an excellent activity for a bored volunteer.

I have never seen a badger looking quite this friendly before:

For some large motor fun, we had one of these:

and a large coned-off area:

THAT was pretty exhausting (because of course I had to do it with them), but it got some wiggles out.

Sorting and classifying:

As I told the parents, it wasn't that important that the kids got things into the right containers, more that they were using words to compare and contrast. Some pulled out all the penguins and practiced counting up, others sorted by color. Whatever! Still STEAM!

Then I made the grown-ups do math.

If I were a grasshopper, I would be able to jump about 1,033 feet. I can jump two. More practice needed.

Shane, on the other hand, can jump three!

He does happen to be one of my favorite little critters.

Toddler STEAM - all things pink and red!

Valentine's Day a-cometh, and just the color selection alone lent itself nicely to some STEAM activities! This week was a particularly messy one, so in addition to having big t-shirts available to put over clothing, I had some plastic food handling gloves. As parents know, it doesn't matter how washable something says it is, red NEVER comes out.

As always, I had the more baby-safe things on the floor:

Rice bins are always good for lots of time sifting and pouring. This was 20 lbs of rice colored with red food coloring.

A few exploration questions to get things going:

But they really didn't need it.

FYI, the rice is actually easier to vacuum off a rug than it is to sweep off the floor, because once it hits the tile it goes EVERYWHERE.

I sliced up a million pool noodles last year, and they all happened to be pink!

Stack them, string them, balance them on your head. You can even toss them at each other with no real repercussions.

The weekend before was Sheridan's Nutcracker birthday party, so I brought the leftover sugarplum play clay:

On top of a vinyl tablecloth and WELL away from the carpet. This was everyone's first stop!

Up on the tables it got messy fast!

fabric softener, dish soap, oil, corn syrup, water, and hair gel, to make your own

The food coloring wouldn't even mix into the oil, so there was our first science lesson! Vinyl tablecloth, plastic under the table, t-shirts and plastic gloves. I cut the bottoms off empty soda and juice bottles for the mixing. The dish soap was a bad choice on my part, as it cut through the oil and made everything mix nicely. They still had fun!

A little tamer:

I just rummaged through the storage room and prize box, and found plenty of pink and red in no time at all.

Back to the messy:

We need more measuring cups! For now I just marked styrofoam cups at approximately the half cup line. Bonus: I can just toss them when it's done.

It's funny how some don't like to get their fingers in it, and others go right to town.

Last but not least, good old coffee filter art - but cut into heart shapes first!

So pretty!

Between the dough and the love potion, the room smelled REALLY good by the time we were done! Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Mess Making!

Toddler STEM - Rainbows (2nd Edition)

Rainbows are such a fun and easy theme, we had to do it again! To see what we did during our first Rainbow STEM, click here.

I skipped the colored spaghetti this time (although that was LOTS of fun!) and went with Jell-O.

I sprinkled some sequins in so we could work on fine motor skills, as well as to hopefully dissuade eating it!

It actually took them a little nudging to really stick their hands in Monday, but then they decided it was pretty cool.

Some more fine motor, as well as colors, sorting, matching, and patterns with bead stringing:

I had the styrofoam blocks saved from some packages received earlier - good thing, that stuff can get expensive!

Perfect for the warm weather we have been having:

I just filled ice cube trays with water and added a few drops of liquid watercolors, which don't stain as badly as food coloring. I set aside paper hoping they would get the idea to put them together in some way.

That was okay, but it needed 'something'. I know: shaving cream!

One little cutie pointed to each ice cube in turn and instructed me to cover "this one. Now this one." They were just melty enough at that point to color the shaving cream when they touched it, then of course we had to mix it all together.

I didn't have time to make more ice cubes before Wednesday, so we went straight to the shaving cream.

I put some shaving cream in before kids arrived, then added coloring and more shaving cream (what happens if I drip it from up high?) when they were there. 

A little reading mixed in with foam letters and colored pet bedding (unused, of course!):

Find the letters to spell your name! Or, you know, jump in it, because that's fun, too.

More pre-reading, fine motor, tactile fun with colored sand (you can also use colored salt - just add a few drops of food coloring to regular salt, and keep stirring.)

Finally, a giant bag of rice and some food coloring/liquid watercolors, toss in some kitchen supplies, and let the cause and effect learning take place:

I started out with different colors of rice in each of three sleds, 

but of course they got mixed pretty quickly. 

I probably could have just had this center, and the kids would have been perfectly happy! We actually went over by almost half an hour both days, because the kids were happily pouring and sifting, transferring from one container to another, seeing what would stack, etc. Very zen-like, as well as educational!

FYI, if you go from the Jell-O to the sand to the shaving cream to the rice, in that order, you end up with quite the spectacular look.

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...