Let's Explore - Creative Activities for Preschoolers

More Fun with Paper

We set-up a fun "paper-testing" experiment. On a large piece of cardstock or cardboard, glue pieces of different types of paper and other materials: printer paper, construction paper, foil, wax paper, plastic wrap, corrugated cardboard, paper towel, fabric, etc. Choose one medium, such as crayons or watercolors, and see what happens as you draw or paint on each type of paper. It's a little bit art and a little bit science!

Our board today had felt, construction paper, bubble wrap, paper bag, muslin, cardboard, paper towel, foil, a doily, and a piece of a plastic bag.  Natalie wanted to do her "test" with watercolors.  While she was working, we talked about what was happening, which materials were absorbing and which weren't.  Natalie loved how the watercolors bubbled up on some of the materials.

When she was done, she also soaked up the extra watercolor with napkins -- a bonus activity! :)

Natalie tried out a board with pastels, regular crayons, and colored pencil, too.  She was surprised that the pastels colored on the plastic bag and felt!

Very fun way to spend the morning!

Happy experimenting!

Fun With Foil

During one of our backyard camp-outs, I brought the box of foil out to the tent and let the girls explore ways to create and play with it.  They had such fun!  Delaney is especially taken with the foil and asks for it all the time.  Here's a few things we have done to explore and play with foil:

Foil, with its shiny and slick surface, can be a wonderful alternative to paper for exploring drawing materials in a different way. Encourage your child to try all kinds of mediums to draw on the foil - crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc.  Gel markers and metallic crayons make really neat effects too!  The girls love experimenting to see what materials "show up."  To make the foil easier to work with, and less likely to tear, try gluing a sheet of foil to a piece of construction paper before beginning your project.

We recently tried out our Crayola Slick Stix on foil - they work great!

Another fun way to explore foil is sculpting. Foil can be bent and twisted, scrunched up in a ball or smashed flat.  The girls made rings, bowls filled with little peas, and lots and lots of flat cookies.  They loved rolling up the foil into balls, then stomping on the balls with their feet. 

Try making shiny “moon rocks” with foil. Then hide them and let your child hunt for them with a flashlight.

The girls also enjoy using some of their foil shapes to poke into playdough or to make prints with paint or stamp pads.

More fun with foil:

Foil Reliefs at Morningstar Green Time

Mexican Metal Tooling at Pepper Paints

Share your ideas for playing with foil, too! :)

Have a great weekend!

Weather Charts

Hi everyone! Hope you had a nice July 4th weekend. Looks like we will be trying to stay out of the heat and smoke again this week - I better start thinking of things to do now!

This week's theme over at Unplug Your Kids was sky. My girls love to talk about the weather, so I thought I would share some of the weather charts we have made.

This paper plate weather chart is perfect for even the littlest weather watcher. We used die-cut shapes and a cotton ball for the cloud. An arrow attached to a clothespin marks the weather each day. You could also attach an arrow with a brad in the middle of the chart.

Another fun and easy way to show the daily weather is with a magnet chart. The girls drew pictures for 4 types of weather - sunny, rainy, cloudy, and windy. I scanned them into the computer and added text. I am going to print the drawings on magnet paper (which I am apparently out of!) and give this a little spot on our fridge. If you don't want to use magnet paper, you could just glue your child's drawings on some thin cardboard (or laminate them) and add a piece of strip magnet to the back.

Finally, if you have a bit of room, you could set up a more detailed weather reporting station. Today I put out a bar graph and a thermometer. The thermometer page is inside a sheet protector and gets colored in with a dry erase marker or overhead projector marker, so we can use it over and over again. I found the thermometer here, and printed it at 130%. We can use the bar graph to practice counting, comparing numbers, etc.

Happy weather-watching!

Ice Treasures

The weather is already heating up and I've started dipping into my summer bag of tricks. This last weekend, we hunted for treasures frozen in ice.

Natalie had specifically requested diamonds and shells. We ended up using some glass marbles from the craft store, including some clear "diamonds" and a variety of shells too.

I like to freeze my ice block in layers, so there are treasures hidden throughout. I ended up with three layers in this one.

We used a variety of treasure-excavating tools: salt, spray bottles with water, droppers + warm water, and toothbrushes. The girls easily worked away at this for 45 minutes, till every last treasure was collected.

Other fun treasures to freeze: coins, plastic animals, polished rocks

You can also freeze individual treasures in ice cubes for quicker treasure-hunting adventures.

Using colored water in the spray bottles is fun too!

I know we will be doing this activity many times this summer!

Happy playing!

Mystery Food Taste Test

It's another Monday, which means another fun Unplugged Project over at the Unplug Your Kids blog. This time, the theme was food. The girls have been doing some 5 Senses projects at preschool, so I thought it would be fun to do a taste test. Once I promised not to use any foods they would consider "weird" or "yucky," the girls were excited to give it a try.

I chose 5 mystery foods - goldfish crackers, plain cooked noodles, chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and pear. We simply had the girls close their eyes while we fed them the food. Then they guessed what it was!

They did great, and were able to guess them all. I am hoping next time, we can try some more "exotic" foods, like maybe cucumber, swiss cheese, etc. The girls also thought doing a "liquid" taste test would be fun.

On a food related side-note: I finally tried a recipe from the The Sneaky Chef cookbook. I made the bite-size Unbelievably Good Chocolate Chip Cookies. Even with the wheat germ and pureed white beans, they were quite tasty and the girls (and us!) gobbled them up. Next, I want to try the brownies -- they have spinach and blueberries in them!

Happy Eating!

Easy Texture Rubbings

paper + chubby crayons (with paper peeled off) = exploring texture with rubbings

some textures we found: tree bark, window screen, bricks, cement sidewalk, house siding

photos by Daddy

Experiment: Sink or Float?

Our girls have been very excited about doing experiments lately. To feed this interest, and to motivate me and my husband to keep providing these opportunities on a regular basis, we've started having "Sunday Night Science."

This week's experiment involved exploring if certain objects will sink or float. This is a simple, but engaging activity that allows young children to practice the important steps in the scientific process: predicting, experimenting, and checking/making conclusions.

We began by collecting items from all over the house. We then sorted them on a large piece of paper according to the girls' predictions of whether they would sink or float.

Then it was time to experiment! One at a time, each item was dropped into the tub of water with great excitement. The girls decided where the item belonged on the chart.

They loved it when their predictions were correct, but I think they loved it even more when they were surprised by the outcome! Some items that surprised them were the candle, bouncy ball, and index card (they all floated!).

When we were finished, we talked about what we learned. We asked, "What makes something sink?" They answered, "Because it's heavy," and "Because it sucks water into it, like the washcloth." They also decided that the cup and washcloth belonged in the middle of the chart, because they floated at first, then sunk to the bottom as they filled or absorbed water.

The girls thought the index card might act like the washcloth, and eventually sink to the bottom. To test this, we left it in the water while we went about other evening activities. After dinner, it was still floating, so the girls decided it was definitely a floater!

We are already brainstorming ideas for weeks to come, including a blindfolded taste test, listening hide and seek (Natalie's idea), and simple electricity experiments. More to come!

Happy experimenting!

Kinder Prep: Name Play

We've been thinking a lot about kindergarten in our house, since our oldest daughter is heading there in the fall! With that in mind, I plan to post a Kinder Prep activity each Tuesday -- skill-based activities that still feel like playing! Enjoy!

Name Play
For your preschooler, learning to write his/her own name is not only important, it is a very satisfying confidence-booster. Here are some ways to make it fun! For most of these activities, it is helpful to write your child's name on a large index card and laminate for durability.

1. Put salt, sand, or cornmeal in a shallow box or pan. Trace letters with finger, stick, q-tip, etc.


2. Use fingers to draw letters in fingerpaint, shaving cream, or pudding - yum!


3. Offer a variety of writing toys: doodle board, chalkboard, dry erase board, etc.


4. Form letter shapes using yarn, playdough, or Wikki Stix.


5. Write letters in the dirt with a stick or rock.


6. Make big letters with sidewalk chalk outside. Try writing your child's name with chalk, then letting him/her "paint" over it with water.


7. Place a small amount of fingerpaint in a sturdy freezer zip-top bag. Smoosh it into an even layer, then use as a writing and tracing pad.


8. Write your child's name on an index card, cut the letters apart, and let your child put them back in order.


9. Use alphabet stamps and a washable stamp pad for practicing letter recognition & order.


10. Markers are great for beginning writers! They don't require a lot of pressure for good results, unlike pencils, which can be frustrating for little hands.


11. Provide real opportunities for name-writing: signing cards or artwork, making room or toy labels, etc.

Have other ideas for Name Play? Please share!