Fireworks Milk, the Egg Drop Experiment, and the Power of Moms

I don't know how many times I have seen the fireworks milk experiment on the internet or in science books or on Pinterest and I told myself that I was going to do that sometime. But, of course, I never got around to it. I finally tried it today and it was is so easy and fascinating that I am kicking myself for not trying it sooner. We were finishing up our unit on mammals and starting our unit on reptiles. I wanted some experiments that had to do with understanding their differences.

The milk experiment was to illustrate the point that all mammals depend on their mothers and on mother's milk. After they are born they need their mothers in order to survive.

Find the instructions for this experiment at the link below.

Fireworks Milk

On the other hand, reptiles are independent from the moment they hatch from their eggs and can survive on their own.

Notice how we practiced with a plastic egg first before trying the real thing!

The egg drop experiment was a fun way to illustrate the reptile point of view. They kick the support system out of the way early on (the pie plate and cardboard tube) and launch into the water on their own.

Egg Drop Experiment

Even if you aren't learning about reptiles or mammals in your house, try these two easy experiments out today! I am sure you already have the supplies on hand. As you learn and explore together you can emphasize how important MOMS are to mammals, including human children! (It never hurts to put in a plug for the moms in the world. We are an amazing species!) You can mention how life really wouldn't go on without MOMS. I for one am so grateful that God made us the way that he did. I am so glad that we get to depend on our families. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Thanks Steve Spangler for these great experiments! I LOVE their website.


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Toddler Activities: Little Jack Horner

By Deborah Pace Rowley

You know I love using Nursery Rhymes with toddlers. Not only do they teach rhythm and rhyme, they are repetitive and they help to build a body of core knowledge that each child needs to know as they venture out into the larger world. When they start preschool and kindergarten, children familiar with lots of nursery rhymes and popular fairy tales will be able to say, "I remember that!" or "I know that one!" This is a huge boost to a young student's self-esteem. In the past we have featured activities for Humpty Dumpty and Hey Diddle Diddle. This activity is based around the rhyme of "Little Jack Horner." It is a great activity for teaching your toddler the names of fruits and their colors.

All you need for this activity is:
A few real or pretend fruits and vegetables, a flat basket, a brown paper bag and some scissors and tape.

I set my basket on top of the paper bag to measure its size. Then I cut an oval shape slightly larger than my basket.

After I cut out my shape, I cut two slits in the crust in an X shape. This is where your toddler will put his or her hand.

(Note: You might want to reinforce this opening with duct tape on the back side. Anniston kept thinking the pie was a present and she wanted to rip it open to find out what was inside!) Once I had a large enough opening cut out, I taped the brown paper to the top of the basket. I gathered it here and there to make it fit.

Once the pie is ready, you can start to play. Set your toddler in a corner with the pie and recite the poem.

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a Corner

Eating his Christmas pie. 

He stuck in his thumb

And pulled out a plum

And said, 

What a Good Boy Am I!" 

Each time that you come to the line that says "Stuck in his thumb", have your child reach into the pie and pull out a fruit. Once you see the fruit, fill in the rest of the poem together. "And pulled out an orange!" Or "pulled out a banana!" Or "pulled out an apple!" and said, "What a good girl am I!"

You can also play a seek and find game with the pie. Have your child try to find the plum without looking. With each fruit that they pull out you can ask, "Is that a plum?" "No." "Let's look again." 

Help your child recognize each fruit by pointing out their colors. You are looking for a plum that is purple. Is this purple? A banana is yellow. Which one is a banana? Once you have finished playing with your pie, you could cut up the fruits and make a fruit salad for you and your toddler to enjoy together. Eat it in the corner on a real pie tin! 

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Toddler Activities: DIY Cheap & Easy Toddler Train

By Deborah Pace Rowley

                      

Toddlers love trains! In fact, you just might have a train fanatic in your house. I love all the cool Brio style trains and train tables out there. But if you are like me, I could never afford those expensive sets. 

That doesn't mean that you can't provide a train for your toddler to link, unlink, load and pull around the house. This fun DIY train is simple, cheap and easy to make. I started with 5 dollar store plastic soap holders with a top and a bottom. (They were travel set that you could use to take your soap on vacation.)  I added a set of baby links that I also purchased that the dollar store. The ten brightly colored links were also $1. So the total train set cost $6.00. It comes with ten cars once I separated the top and the bottom of each soap dish.  I was so proud of myself for drilling the holes in each side. I even found a drill bit big enough so that the links could fit through the holes. Girl Power! 

 

Toddlers will simply love loading the train with all their little animals and toys. You could add a pull string by tying some yarn or kite string to the end of the last link and your toddler could pull the train around the house. For older toddlers and preschoolers you could make this train educational as well. 

In the picture below, you can see that I added a colored square to the bottom of each car and Brooklyn tried to find an animal that matched each color. 

Here Brooklyn tried to put the correct number of raisins in each car. You could have your child load the cars with pretzel stick "logs" or gold fish or cereal or anything you have on hand.

Here I added an alphabet letter to the bottom of each car and Brooklyn is trying to find something to put in each car that starts with each letter. There are so many fun variations for playing with this toddler train. You could put one letter from your child's name in the bottom of each car and have your child rearrange the cars to spell his or her name correctly. You could put beginning sight words in each car and your child could link them up to make a sentence.

All aboard for lots of fun! Pin It

Toddler Activities: My Lucky Day Story

By Deborah Pace Rowley

I hope you have enjoyed our holiday stories in the past. Here is an original story for St. Patrick's Day. I wanted this story to help teach colors. Have your toddler help steal the correctly colored item as the story progresses. The leprechaun first nabs a red sock. Then he steals an orange belt, a yellow flag, a green snake, and blue pajama bottoms. Just when Jake's day can't get any worse, the leprechaun steals his purple trading card. But don't worry. The tricky leprechaun has a trick up his sleeve and he turns all the missing items into a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end.
The cute leprechaun image is from sweetclipart.com.

For added fun include your own little treat at the end of the story. This will really make it your child's lucky day!

My Lucky Day Story

My Lucky Day Illustrations 

     
Here is Anniston all dressed up for St. Patrick's Day. We just need to teach her about the color green! Don't you love her upside down tiara. Pin It

Toddler Activities: Puppy Love- A Valentine's Tail

By Deborah Pace Rowley

We have shared stories for Thanksgiving (The Turkey with the Terrible Temper) and Christmas (Santa's Pack). Here is a fun, original story for Valentine's Day.

It is called "Puppy Love- AValentine's Tail." What makes this story so fun is that you can help your child create a picture of little puppy out of hearts as you tell the story.

Muffin the puppy is in love with a kitten named Cupid. But like most cats Cupid plays too cool for her Romeo. Muffin doesn't give up, however, as he delivers his hearts, Cupid secretly uses them to create a portrait of the puppy to reveal her true feelings in return.

You can use your own red and pink construction paper to create the hearts that you need for the story. Or you can use our free printable of the pieces here. You can make this story reusable by laminating the pieces and attaching magnets so you can put the puppy together on a magnet board. Or you can simply print out the pieces, cut them apart and help your child glue them to a piece of white paper as you tell the story.

Either way you will have lots of fun. Older toddlers can start to pick out the hearts that are the correct color and size as you tell the story. Even preschoolers will need help putting the hearts in the right place so you can have the finished product in front of them for them to copy or you can show them where each piece should go to keep the final image a surprise.  As you tell the story over and over again, your child will quickly learn just where to put each piece to create the picture of the puppy. Then they can be responsible to tell the story to Dad or to Grandma or Grandpa.

You will find the text of the story below.

Puppy Love- A Valentine's Tail

Anniston with the real Muffin

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Toddler Activities: Santa's Pack

By Deborah Pace Rowley

"Santa's Pack" is another story that has been told and retold in the Pace family since I was small. Like "The Turkey with the Terrible Temper" it has been rewritten countless times and new illustrations have been added each time the old ones have worn out. I wish I could give the author of this sweet story credit and hope that somehow through the magic of the internet the original writer can be found.

I love this story because it teaches the importance of traditions. It builds on a toddler's growing understanding about holidays and colors and how one holiday leads to another throughout the year. But most of all, this story is just plain fun! The elves somehow manage to get the best of Santa Claus each time he brings a new pack for them to fill. Your toddler will love adding the contents to each pack at the appropriate time in the story and can even put up the correct color pack to begin with.

You can find the text of the story here. The free printable illustrations can be found here or by clicking on the sample illustration below. Make sure you laminate the illustrations for extra durability. Magnets would work great if using this story on a magnet board. You can also cut a slit in each pack above the black gather lines so that the contents will slip down just slightly inside the pack. We hope you will enjoy telling your toddler the story of "Santa's Pack" as much as we have.

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Toddler Activities: The Turkey with the Terrible Temper

By Deborah Pace Rowley

I remember my mother telling me the story of "The Turkey with the Terrible Temper" every Thanksgiving when I was a little girl. That means this story is over 40 years old. (You know how sometimes your age just really hits you. This is one of those times.) Anyway, I wish that I knew where this story came from so that I could give credit to the author, but I don't. We have told and retold this story so many times in our family and have created so many different flannel board illustrations to go with it that it is impossible to know where it all began.

Still, this story is too good not to share. I love telling this story to toddlers who struggle to control their emotions just like Tom Turkey does. Toddlers love to put up the red turkey when Tom gets mad and turns bright red. Then they can replace the red turkey for the red colored feather in Tom's tail. This story accomplishes two learning goals at once. First, it reinforces their growing knowledge about colors and sequencing in a story. But more importantly it reinforces the lesson we really want them to learn. They can control themselves when something doesn't go their way!

I remember hanging up the picture of the little turkey on our kitchen fridge and asking one of my kids about to launch into a major temper tantrum, "Well, hello little Tom Turkey. I wonder what color you are going to turn today?" Sometimes this reminder would be all that was needed to prevent a major meltdown! And sometimes it wouldn't.... but anything is worth a try, right? Over time the message began to sink in and before I knew it, my terrible two and terrible three year old had become a mature four year old who remained unruffled most of the time.

To make your own version of "The Turkey with the Terrible Temper" print out the story here. You can then make some flannel board turkeys out of felt or you can print out the colored turkeys and feathers that we have created here or by clicking on the photo below.

If you decide to use the free printables we have provided, we recommend that you laminate them or print them on card stock for extra durability. Tiff added magnets to the back of hers so that she could use them on a magnet board with Anniston. They would also be great hung on the fridge or even pasted into a simple book that your toddler could use to retell the story. Enjoy our version of the Turkey (i.e. Toddler) with the Terrible Temper!

P.S. Does anyone else find it ironic that my little turkey took a tantrum through most of this "photo shoot"? Her big sister even pretended to join in for one picture. Yep, this story is going to get told often at our house in the coming weeks. :) - Tiffany

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Toddler & Preschool Activities: Learning Colors

By Tiffany Rudd

This month I started teaching preschool in our home again. This is my 5th year teaching preschool and I'm pretty sure it is the best mom job ever! I just love gathering and creating snacks, crafts, songs, games and activities that make learning fun. Plus, of course I love teaching and learning with my own kids.

I'm especially excited this year because I get to share my preschool curriculum with you here on the blog! Let's start with Colors...

I titled this post "Toddler & Preschool Activities," because most of my students have come to preschool already knowing most if not all of their colors. So, I usually just start the year with one or two days to review the colors. Two or three years old is a great time to start learning colors with your child and a four year old is ready for some fun review and extension activities. 

Snack Ideas: 

      * Fruit Rainbow: This year I just used some fresh fruit (cherries, orange slices, pineapple, grapes and blueberries) to create a fun "fruit rainbow." We named the colors, talked about the order of the colors in the rainbow, and then of course we ate our rainbow.

      * Rainbow Jello: In the past I've also made rainbow jello. It's a little time consuming to make and allow each layer to set, but it sure is beautiful and fun to eat. Click on the photo below to go to one recipe. When I made it I only did one white layer and did a purple layer as well.

Activity Ideas:

      * Color Tubes: This is always one of the favorite color activities. Click on the photo below to see my post with 3 ways to use these fun color tubes.

      * Outdoor Color Hunt: With my preschool class I often just do an indoor or outdoor "touch the item" color hunt. I call out a color and the class runs to touch an item of that color as fast as they can. Click on the photo below to see the full post on this fun color activity.

      *Catch Anything: This fun printable game is a great way to review colors. Click on the photo below to print the mitt and color review page.

Free Printables:

      * My Color Book: Every year my students go home with a review book they created to help them practice colors, shapes, numbers and the alphabet letters. These books often become some of my own children's favorite books to "read" on their own and even to have read to them at bedtime. Click on the photo below to print a color review book for your child.

      * Learning Placemats: Just a few weeks ago I shared some learning placemats that have been great for helping my toddler learn her shapes and colors. Click on the photo below to read the whole post and print your own learning placemats.

Wow! That was a long post, but I hope it helps as you learn colors with your toddler or preschooler!

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