Summer of Science and Nature

Over the next few months, I thought I'd do a casual science and nature unit with my kids (aged 3.5 and 1.5) to pass the long hot summer days. As with all my bright ideas ;) my initial plan is likely to evolve as we go on, and I still have to flesh it out a lot and finish the latter sections, but here's a rough outline, if anyone would like to follow along. I've tried to work with what we have resource-wise as we've got some travel coming up at the end of the summer that we're still saving for. We'll likely heavily add to the books mentioned with ones from the library too.

Dinosaurs: May 26-June 1
make and excavate dino rocks with plastic dino skeletons
dino sensory bin with erupting mud
visit nearby dinosaur museum
snack: boiled and dyed “dino eggs”
books: My First Dinosaur Board Book, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs, My Big Dinosaur Book, Digging Up Dinosaurs, Dinosaur, Dinosaur’s Day, DK Guide to Dinosaurs
family movie night: Land Before Time

Insects and arachnids: June 2-8
giant yarn spider web (inspired by this)
spider web weaving
ant farm
small world play with plastic bugs
raise butterflies
make beeswax candles
play with beeswax modeling clay
snack: honey from honeycomb
books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider, The Grouchy Ladybug
family movie night: A Bug’s Life, The Very Hungry Caterpillar ($5 at Target), or Magic School Bus Creepy Crawly Fun

Plants and rocks: June 9-15
plant new flowers in playhouse window boxes
color tree trunks with chalk
make a fairy garden (another inspiration picture)
nature in water table
contact paper nature collage
painting with flowers
freeze nature in ice cubes
color walk
dandelion seed blow painting
visit nearby state park
display flower life cycle poster
books: A Tree is a Plant, A Tree is Nice, Eye on Nature minerals book, Red Leaf Yellow Leaf
family movie night: ?

Reptiles, amphibians, and birds: June 16-22
frog pond small world
display frog life cycle poster
search for lizards and toads in yard
snakes?
turtles?
birds?
books: Eye on Nature reptiles and snakes books, The Red Eyed Tree Frog, Frog and Toad series, Owl Babies
family movie night:

Underwater animals: June 23-29
blue Jell-O, green spaghetti, clear water beads in kiddie pool (similar to this)
ocean small world
go swimming at nearby pool
books: The Rainbow Fish, Eye on Nature sharks and whales books
family movie night: Finding Nemo or Disneynature Oceans

Farm animals: June 30-July 6
farm small world
visit nearby farm
visit farmer's market for fresh eggs, milk, and produce
make butter
books: Barnyard Dance
family movie night: Charlotte’s Web

The Arctic: July 7-13
arctic small world
frozen shaving cream "snow"
books: Eye on Nature penguins book
family movie night: March of the Penguins

The Rainforest: July 14-20
making rain experiment
plants grow upward experiment
books: Slowly Slowly Slowly Said the Sloth
family movie night: Fern Gulley

Humans: July 21-27
play doctor's office or hospital
doctor puzzle
land art self-portraits
books: I Like Me, Shades of People, My First Body Board Book
family movie night: Magic School Bus Human Body or Babies

Sun, Moon, Stars, Planets: July 28-August 3
alien sensory bin
books: Wow, we don't own a single book on the topic!
family movie night: Magic School Bus Space Adventures

Science Experiments
1. erupting paint bags
2. make clear slime
3. microwave Ivory soap
4. chemistry lab - This was a HUGE hit last year.
5. elephant toothpaste
6. mad scientist lab - I bought all the stuff to do this last year and never got around to it.
7. fizzy play
8. lava lamp sensory play
9. transparent and bouncing eggs
10. colored ice sculptures
11. Mentos and diet soda
12. color changing carnations

I could get permission and post some inspiration pictures, but, frankly, I'm too lazy to bother right now. I hope you'll forgive a boring, incomplete, pictureless list.

Our New Block and Building Center

We've been working on a block center this week in our ever-evolving playroom.

We bought a cube shelving unit from Target that's similar to but smaller than the Ikea Expedit. For a fairly inexpensive piece of furniture (we got it for $52), it's quite sturdy and was quick to put together. We have a couple of extra shelves from an old unit on the floor in the corner to provide a hard surface to build on.

The unit is filled with a variety of blocks, building materials, and imaginary play figures. I may switch out the bags and buckets for more natural baskets in the future. Isn't this a lovely inspiration picture?

Creating a Blank Book to Illustrate

Recently Jean from The Artful Parent mentioned buying her daughters some blank books to create with. It inspired me to make a blank book for Meg to illustrate that was a bit more special than our typical sheets of paper folded together.

I had a nice clean sheet of white cardboard stashed away in my craft room. It came in a package I'd received, thicker than poster board, but thinner than corrugated cardboard. I showed Meg how to score it down the center on front and back so it would fold nicely, then she cut some white paper down to the same size with her scrapbooking paper cutter. We stapled it all together down the spine.

After it was done being assembled, Meg wasn't happy with the staples being visible on the spine and asked if she could cover them with washi tape. It was a pretty brilliant idea and made the book very pretty. She and her brother worked together to make lovely abstract pictures on the cover and each page. He actually worked on this part more than she did. I think the assembly turned out to be Meg's favorite part.

Glue, Salt, Liquid Watercolor

Drizzle white glue all over paper (card or poster board works best - we didn't have any handy, so we used watercolor paper), sprinkle salt liberally on wet glue, touch tip of paintbrush loaded with liquid watercolor to the salty glue and watch the color creep along the line of glue.

Newest Indoor Art Supply Storage

First there was this, then we updated things a bit, then we moved the indoor art supplies downstairs to our fancy new playroom. And here's what we have now:

The "small paper" drawers hold small sheets of foam from Dollar Tree, quarters of construction paper (I chop a big stack up periodically with my paper cutter), and Post-It notes. I didn't take a good picture of the "paper" magazine file, but it holds expanding file folders from Dollar Tree to separate the Color Wonder, watercolor, envelopes and blank cards, catalogues, scrapbook, and plain paper.

The ubiquitous Ikea Bygel rail and cups. I love that Meg can easily grab a cup and carry it to where she's working.

It's all quite functional. My 18 month old, 3.5 year old, and their friends have no problem accessing everything they need to create and play with art materials. I have been thinking about changing out all the square containers on the bottom shelf with the clear plastic jars on the first shelf (the ones that house crayons and markers), but for now, I'm pleased with how things look and function.

You may have noticed that the sensory materials are now missing. They've been moved to the kitchen, since that's where they're most often played with, and it's much easier to clean up spilled rice and moon sand from the hard floors than it is on carpet.