Hike in Leaves and Breathe Fresh Air

 Now is the time to get outside into the fresh air.  Although leaves are falling rapidly as days shorten, families have just enough time to teach young children the science and art of leaves with simple activities, everyday materials, and conversation.

  You’ll need a bagful of leaves, a paint brush or sponge, paper, five paper plates, a heavy book, white glue, and clear packing tape.

Collecting Leaves

   Take a walk and gather a variety of tree leaves, colors, and shapes like oak, maple, and willow. Then discuss how maple trees are shaped like an open hand whereas many oaks are tough, long, and thin with a few fingers sticking out. 

   Sort before the leaves curl and help children tape a sample leaf on five separate plates. For example: a yellow maple, brown maple, red maple, an oak, and one for damaged leaves. These leaves will label your plates. Now take out a few leaves at a time and help children place leaves on the plate that are similar to the label leaf.

Leaf’s Job

   Carry on a science conversation about attributes like color and shape. Explain why leaves turn from green to red, yellow, and brown. The leaf’s main job is to make sugar food for plants to live and grow. They manufacture with part of the air called carbon dioxide, sunlight, and the green chemical pigment chlorophyll in the leaves. There are many library books and free online videos to show this photosynthesis process to children.  The food is carried by the trunk to the roots and is stored for the winter. 

   As sunlight hours become shorter in October the work of the leaves slows down and a layer of cork cells forms across the base of the leaf and closes it off from the tree.  The water supply is cut off and it slowly dries and dies. As it dies the other colors that were there under the green like red, yellow, and orange show up.  A dry fall produces dull colors. A wet fall has vibrant colors. 

Leaf Art

  After sorting, place some leaves a thick book to press. Use paper towel sheets to keep leaves from touching book pages. You may first spray leaves with hair spray to help retain color. 

  After  a few days leaves will be flat enough for art.  Children may make bookmarks by gluing small leaves or leaflets on paper strips and covering both sides with clear packing tape for great gifts.   

  Children can also make rubbings by placing leaves under a paper and gently rubbing a flat peeled crayon over the leaf.  Veins will show up.  Dabbing paint around leaves placed on top of the paper will create a beautiful collage when the leaves are removed.

More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Kids Love Cheap Easy Activities

Playing in Water is Fun & Teaching Time

Playing with water is a great way to have fun, increase vocabulary and teach.  Young children who read and do fun hands-on learning activities while talking to adults start school with about ten times as many words than children who don’t have these opportunities. 

Math and Science

  When the family heads to the beach for fun there can be  a little teaching, too. Take along different sized containers , a bucket, shovels, and plastic toys.  How many cups will fill a bucket?  How many buckets does it take to fill a hole in the sand? Where is the water going if  there is no exit stream? 

  Families can gather flat rocks on the beach and teach older children to skip them in the water.  Little children can throw a few stones in the water close to them.  Do bigger rocks make bigger splashes?  Why?

   Place some water in a container and start adding a few stones. Guess and count how many stones it takes before a container overflows. Gather natural items found on the beach and find out what floats and sinks.  Children also like to fill a small plastic boat- like container with rocks and estimate how many are needed to sink it.  You are teaching water displacement and volume which is a measure of the amount of space an object takes up.

  Children can make an outlet stream from their hole back to the lake. Now can they make a dam with sticks, stones, and mud?

  Speaking of mud, who can make the highest castle tower by drizzling mud through their fists?  This is a good technique for sugar sand that doesn’t pack well.

Water is Cheap Paint!

Paint and Wash with Water

  Water is a cheap paint, too. Young children love to paint with water and a small brush on colored paper or concrete. Provide a bucket and different kinds of paintbrushes. Together make the ABC’s, numbers, shapes, and draw pictures on the driveway. You can explain that the water molecules evaporate into the air.

 Children love to help clean bikes. They can use a hose or a thoroughly rinsed spray bottle filled with water.  Teach children how to spray and wipe with hand towels. They can also rinse off soap from your car and themselves on a hot day.

Indoor Water Fun

Water is Great Anywhere!!

  Water play is easy indoors, too.  Fill a dishpan or tub with water. Use plastic measuring cups to fill different containers.  Dolls, trucks and other toys can be washed with a little dish soap and a brush if you don’t plan to use the water for plants later. Give children straws to blow bubbles in the water or on their cupped hand. Estimate how many small toys are required to sink a container.

For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and podcasts.

 Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Hawaiian Volcano Teaches Kids

Earthquakes Reveal Earth's Crust's Insides 

  Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii last erupted to this magnitude in 1982.  It is erupting now with a vengeance. Although the overflow of the ten calderas is devastating to some land and people of Hawaii’s Big Island, the cracks and flows help children peek inside the Earth’s crust, search for igneous black volcanic rock at home, and inspire science demonstrations.

Background

 Family may have visited Mt. Kilauea. Have they seen the lava move and smelled the sulphur dioxide gas? You Tube has videos. Search engines like Google or Kiddle, and libraries have information. This kind of science is very exciting and dramatic.

  Unlike the picture perfect cone volcanoes with a peak and one bowl shaped caldera, Kilauea is very low with more than ten calderas along its East Rift Zone. The Earth is cracking apart and the magma, melting rock below ground, surfaces and becomes lava.

  A number of chemicals are inside the Earth 

Chemicals Inside Cause Lava, Rumblings

causing huge rumbling explosions, fiery spitting lava, refrigerator size flying rocks, volcanic ash, glass shards and vog, a kind of deadly volcanic smog.  The lava is a melted sticky rock syrup, denser than cement and acting like bull dozers. 

  Some large volcanoes have even cooled the Earth for several years.  It depends on how much sulfur dioxide gas spews into the atmosphere combining with water vapor to make tiny droplets that reflect some sunlight way from the Earth.

 The 2,140 degree Kilauea lava is meeting the Pacific Ocean, the site of the Pacific Ring of Fire. When hot lava meets the cool ocean water, hydrochloric acid steam called laze is formed with tiny glass particles.

   Hawaiians believe Pele, goddess of fire, “She who shapes the  sacred land” is perturbed and shooting lava 330 feet into the air, higher than the tip of the Statue of Liberty. Some earthquakes are reaching 6.9 out of 10 on the Richter seismograph scale.

Make Mt. Kilauea

  You can create your own family safe volcano, earthquake shake and rumble, and explosive noise because you have kids to provide the drama and sound effects.

  Cut out ten 12 x 12 inch pieces of tin foil.  Fold them into 6 inch by 6 inch squares to make them strong. 

Mix Up a Safe Volcano at Home

Shape into 10 deformed cones and place in a cake pan with Lego villages.

  Place about 4 Tablespoons vinegar into the bottom of each and a few drops of dish detergent, orange food coloring, pinch of salt, and mix.   Stir about 2 teaspoons baking soda into the vinegar watch the chemical reaction. Make the exploding sounds and shake the pan. An acid (vinegar) and a base (soda) when mixed will fizz when there is a chemical reaction producing harmless carbon dioxide. Clean up easily with water. Can you stop the flow and save the villages?

For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons.

Photos: Fran Darling, darling fotos

Counter Top Backup Bubbles

Bubbles--Indoor Science Activity

 Whenever it is too hot, too cold, too rainy, or too dark for outdoor bubbles, this indoor science activity helps young children learn to ask questions, make predictions and blow huge indoor bubbles with a minimum of fuss or mess. 

  You will need Dawn dish detergent, water, plastic straws, measuring tape, a water resistant counter top or cookie sheet, and towels to clean up.

Making Bubbles

  Clean a counter top and wet it with a

Wet Counter-top-Add a Few Drops of Detergent

 puddle of less than 1/8 cup of water.  Place 3-5 drops of dish detergent on the puddle and spread around with your hand (fingers curved) until you have some small bubbles. 

  Wet the tip of a straw in your bubble solution and gently place that tip at a 45-degree angle where the bubble meets the counter. 

   Slowly blow into the small bubble. 

Gently Blow Into the Soapy Puddle

The bubble will enlarge as long as the bubble stays in the soapy solution. Bubbles can reach a foot or more in diameter.

 Soap solution molecules link together. When children blow air into bubbles, the soap solution stretches and surrounds the air. We see bubble colors when light is bent similar to a rainbow. 

  To make smaller bubbles inside larger bubbles, dip the straw in the table solution and gently blow inside the larger bubble. 

  At first no one will get a bubble, and suddenly your counter top is full of bubbles. 

 Practice making bigger and bigger bubbles. When they pop, measure the diameter of the bubbles edge to edge through the center.
Refresh solution

   If the solution stops working, add more solution or more water until you get many small bubbles when you swish it around with curved fingers. if the solution is white when you spread it around clean up and start over. 

   What colors do you see in the bubbles? What color does a section of the bubble become the moment before there is a hole and that section bursts? (red, the thinnest part of the bubble skin)

Ask Questions, Experiment, Have Fun!

Who can make the most bubbles inside a larger bubble?  Can you move the bubble? Can you join it with another bubble? Predict what will happen if you move the bubble to a dry spot. Can you pick it up in your hand? Can you carefully place your soapy hand inside a bubble and keep blowing to surround your hand? 

  Teach very young children (age two) to blow OUT gently.  They will generally like to burst bubbles rather than make them.  Give them a cup or large bowl with solution.  

They will enjoy making bubble volcanoes or dipping their straw in the solution and making small bubbles in their hand or in the air.

By Jean Hetrick

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

More Vocabulary Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’

website: Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube 

Having Fun and Learning With Gravity

Gravity-force that causes objects to fall! 

 Adults who provide care for young children often teach them about animals and plants when out in nature, but children also enjoy learning about physical science. Gravity is the force that causes objects to fall. It is fun for children to learn because it involves sliding, rolling, and other vigorous activities that are some of their favorite things to do.

  Learning about gravity can be done anywhere there is an incline like a safe driveway, hill, playground slide, or a few steps. While going down a slide point out that gravity helps one go fast. 

Gravity Tosses

  Tossing a slightly deflated beach ball up in the air or rolling it down a hill is a good teaching moment and time for discussion.  Gravity is the force that attracts one object to another. If a ball is thrown up, it will come down toward the larger object, the Earth.  A slightly deflated

Gravity - force that attracts objects together!

 beach ball is easier to catch for small hands. 

  Children can roll a ball or some small cars on a decline to have gravity fun.  Push balls down steps so children can practice catching them with the help of gravity. Place a long board on the steps. Will the balls go down faster on the flat board or the steps?

  While the board is out have some fun racing small cars down the plain. Which car is the gravity champion that gets to the bottom first and then continues to roll the farthest? Does the size of the car seem to matter?

  When washing the car on a hot day aim the hose straight up in the air. Children will love to make rain on everyone with the help of gravity. Take out some umbrellas and enjoy the shower.

   If you throw a feather and piece of paper in the air do they land as fast as a ball? No, because they are 

Take Pictures to Make a Personal Science Book

flat and air gets underneath to slow their fall to the Earth. If your children roll that same piece of paper into a ball will it now fall to the ground faster?  There is less resistance and gravity will win. 

Gravity Rolls

  When cousins or friends get together they can have fun with gravity rolling down grassy hills. Teach children to hug themselves and roll sideways down the hill.  

Someone inevitably gets the idea to summersault down, too.

  

Many Childrens' Books Tell About Gravity

You can take pictures during any of these activities and make a personal science book about gravity with children’s words underneath.   Experiences like these give children practice explaining science and telling a story.

read to young children. For more STEM fun see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com. 

photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

More Vocabulary Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’

website:  Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube

S.T.E.M. Perfect for Families

STEM Opens Conversation Channels

S.T.E.M.  opens up many new opportunities for conversation and learning  during family time like taking walks. The acronym stands for having fun with science, technology, engineering, and math.  Most states have now added “A” for art making the acronym S.T.E.A.M. It’s a way of organizing learning and families can participate.

A Way of Thinking

  How does S.T.E.M. work in the family?  Whenever a family is doing an activity, adults can add a little learning. For example, if grandpa is taking a walk with young children he can stop to watch a few ants working around their anthill. He might even pack a magnifying glass, a

How Does STEM Work?

 real handy tool.  Maybe they’ll pick up a stick to watch an ant crawl. Gramps can add a few interesting science facts he knows about ants, like they bite and may sting.  They crawl down many feet below the frost line to survive the winter. What happens if we leave a little honey, cheese, or a dead fly by the ant hole?  What is the prediction?

  When they get home they might look up information about ants and images on Google or You Tube educational movies.  They might take a picture with their camera. This picture can be inspiration for some sketches, models of ants, or a library visit.  

How Does STEM Work?

  To get the “E” for engineering, grandpa might talk about now the ants make their home. What happens when their house on the sidewalk gets washed out?  How long will it take to rebuild? How is their home like ours—ant farm anyone?

  Let’s count how many ants we see on the way to the park?  Are they all the same color and size?  Is there a pattern to the ant holes on the sidewalk?  There is your math.

  Counting, finding likenesses and differences, looking for patterns, asking questions, figuring out answers, putting in groups, and classifying them are activities kids love to do. Adults can sneak them in anytime anyplace.

Seaborg Center

  Families can talk about the weather, gravity, animals, plants, tracks, mud, gardens, water, 

Sign up for Summer STEM!

food, signs, 

camping, or playing sports, all with S.T.E.M. or S.T.E.A.M. in mind. It’s a way of thinking that just takes a little practice.

  According to the National Science 

Foundation “Over 50% of the fastest growing jobs in the U.S. are math, science, engineering, or technology related” and with families helping, grandkids can get those jobs.

  

All Free Home Materials!

Northern Michigan University offers many exciting summer S.T.E.M. classes for young children at the Seaborg Center that are S.T.E.M. related.

  Many libraries, nature centers, Y’s, and summer camps use the S.T.E.M. model for organizing their programs.  There are also many on-line ideas to easily work S.T.E.M. into your family’s summer life.  

It’s all free with materials in homes, parks, and backyards. 

photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

More Vocabulary Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’

website: Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube

Learning and Fun with Money

Money is Fascinating to Children

Money is fascinating to young children especially when they look closely at the pictures and symbols. They learn about national monuments in Washington D.C., national parks, states, founding fathers, and presidents. They can learn what George Washington and Abraham Lincoln actually looked like.
  By examining money, families can begin teaching children about the history of the United States, slogans, and government basics (civics).
   Some easy and fun money experiences can be provided at home to supplement classroom activities around President’s Day. Older siblings or adults can spend time interacting, and answering questions while supervising young children.
Look Closely at Money

Money Helps Learn About National Monuments

  Collect some change and paper money and spread it out on the table. If children have a piggy back or have just received money, they will especially enjoy looking at “their money.” Use a magnifying glass to look at the pictures on the money. What date is on the coin? What US symbols and slogans are on the money? Talk about what a President does and how citizens choose this leader, especially important during an election year. Who is the President now?  Where does he live? Older children will like the philadelphia.org/education site and learn about pyramids, frogs, goddesses, and Santa Claus on early money.
  Sort and categorize the money in piles. Talk about what we call each piece of money. What do we do with money? Where do people keep their money? Older kids can learn the value of each coin and how we count change.
 

Talk About Money & Start A Collection

How much money is on the table if you add it all together? Write it down to show how we write dollars and cents. Younger kids will enjoy just counting how many of each type of coin is present. Line them up.  How many pennies would we need to make a nickel or dime? Children may want to start a quarter collection and learn about a state on each quarter.
Fun Money Science
 After covering a table with newspaper, mix a little salt with some lemon juice in a plastic or ceramic cup. Drop a few pennies into the lemon juice and let them soak for about 30 minutes.

Practice Science With Money

Then remove the pennies and wipe them with a paper or cloth.    Another suggestion is to make a little paste with the juice plus some baking soda, rub it on the penny for a few minutes, then rinse. The darker residue that is removed is copper oxide caused by oxygen in the air combining with the copper. A new shiny penny appears.  Remind children not to touch their eyes, wash hands, and wipe up the area. 
Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos 
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Taking Winter Science Walks

Take Walks on Trails or at Home

When a warmer sunny winter day comes around, grab it, for there is fun and learning outside.
  Children also need vitamin D provided by sunshine, milk, and some juices. Vitamin D works with calcium to develop strong healthy bones. Families can plan on a twenty-minute time of exploring outside on sunny days. Remember to have children wear sunglasses in the bright snow, too.
   Talk while dressing for the outdoors.

Talk and Explore

Point out right and left boots.  Mark the right boot with an X or R. As you help with snow pants, jackets, boots, and mittens use “right” repeatedly. “Let’s put on your right boot.” Raise your right arm.”  “Give me your right leg.” You might sing a little “Hokey Pokey” about the right side only.
Keep it Simple  If children are not accustomed to being outside, an adventure might be very simple.  Young children can take a walk to the mailbox and follow a path you have made while they hold your hand.  They can drag a stick in the snow like the character in “The Snowy Day” by Jack Ezra.
  Young children can help shovel a bit of the porch or a little part of the sidewalk.  They can collect snow and watch it melt inside later. If they bring a pan of snow inside and place the loose snow in top of water will it sink or float before it melts? It is less dense with more air between molecules no matter how hard the snow is packed. Therefore, it will float.
 They can collect snowflakes on cold black paper to count the points on the crystals.
Be Science Detectives

Be Science Detectives

Once outside children explore and solve mysteries for a short time.  Take a short walk around the yard and look for animals and tracks. What made these tracks? What direction were the animals going? What were they looking for?  Where do rabbits, mice, and squirrels go when it is cold? Common small animals like ants, earthworms, bees, and butterflies are not around.  Where are they?
   If the snow packs, young children can make a small snowman family since big balls are too heavy. They may also like to stack ice chunks and make a small fort or dig into a small snow bank. 

Look for the Unusual

Look for plant skeletons that might be sticking up through the snow. Children can make a small bouquet to take inside.  Think small and a take few minutes for any activity as attention span is usually short and preschool children chill easily.  Their boots may get full of snow. Snow will get under their cuffs and even the best mittens don’t work well on very small hands.  Sometimes just a sled ride is possible. 
Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Making, Raking, and Painting Leaves

 

Take a Walk to Collect Leaves

Young children’s minds are wondrous creative gifts. We sometimes forget how much they can absorb. Fall is an excellent season for science and art learning fun and they don’t take much time.
  You’ll need coffee filters, paper towels, child safety scissors, watercolors, a dinner plate, and leaves
  Take a short walk and collect some colorful leaves. Explain how leaves are nature’s food factories.  They take water from the ground through their plant roots.
  Introduce a few science terms. Young children learn long dinosaur names and master a DVD controller so why not a little science?
Science Concepts
  Leaves take a gas called carbon dioxide from the air (that we exhale) and use sunlight and water to turn this gas into glucose (sugar) for the plant and oxygen for us to breathe. A green chemical called chlorophyll helps make it all happen and covers up other beautiful leaf colors.  Plants use the sugar as a food for energy. This is photosynthesis meaning putting together with light.
  In fall the tree gets ready to rest for the winter and live off the sugar. There is less sunshine and no need for chlorophyll so the tree shuts off water to the leaves with  little walls and we get to see all the colors that were hidden by the green as leaves die and fall to the ground. Children can act this out.
Watercolor Fun
  Help your children identify all of the leaf colors before placing leaves in a heavy book to press.

Identify Colors Along the Way

Then take out a few absorbent coffee filters, watercolors, and a plate of rinsing water. Teach the kids to rinse off their bush to keep it clean.
  To make maple leaves, children can spread fingers and trace their hand on a filter. For oak leaves trace their foot or palm with fingers snug together.
  After checking that your children are grasping the scissors correctly, help them hold and cut out the filter leaves. If they cut out jagged leaves, no problem.  They are doing the best they can right now.
  On a paper towel make a few water colors they observed on real leaves like red, yellow, purple (red and blue) orange (red and yellow) brown (orange plus a little blue or green plus a little red.
  Children can now paint their filter leaves.

Continue to Use Science Words

The watercolors will blend together. Allow the leaves to dry and press in a book or gently iron, if curly. Tape them in a sunny window or glue on a cardboard circle to make a wreath.
 Use the science words at least six times on future walks and discussions together.  Encourage them to explain to someone else how leaves turn colors.
Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Young Scientists Love Fireflies

Through the summer months fireflies also known as lightning bugs and glowworms are like golden seeds sown throughout the night. They are best seen on warm damp nights from darkened homes. They thrive in forests, fields, and marshes near water. The purpose of all the flashing is to find mates.
  Observing these beetles is an excellent way to teach young scientists about insects. Fireflies like all insects have six legs. They have a small head covered by a large thorax shield. Their two antennae are long and are in constant motion.  Beneath grey wing covers is a pair of large dark veined wings folded when not in use. They also have an abdomen. Some segments underneath are sulfur yellow. These are the lamps that carry on chemical reactions to make light. Their larvae and eggs also glow.
  When children see fireflies during the day, teach that they are insect friends. The larvae kill snails, slugs, earthworms (unfortunately), and insects that are harmful to garden plants.
All About Glowing
  The adult’s sole purpose is to find a mate by glowing. The male’s glow part covers the entire end of the abdomen. In the female, only the middle portion of the abdomen is converted into a lamp. Fireflies produce cold light, the most efficient light in the world.  The chemical reaction is 100% light.
   During the day children enjoy looking at fireflies through a magnifying glass which can be part of a handy science box, along with small jars, spoons for picking up insect specimens, colored pencils and paper for drawing and printing a few words.
  Insects should not be handled. They can be harmful. If scared, fireflies shed drops
of blood that taste nasty to predators and can be poisonous to some animals.
Catch and Release
  To catch fireflies turn off all house lights. Go outside and aim a flash light covered with thin blue tissue paper at the ground, aim the light directly up and down quickly, or imitate the flash patterns (uncovered light) they may emit. Never shine a light directly on fireflies. You will scare them away.
  When close enough, catch your fireflies using a net. Place the caught fireflies into a clear jar with a lid that's been pierced to let in air and has a moistened paper towel inside to keep the air in the jar humid. Then fireflies can breathe and won't dry out.  They are very fragile.
   If they are not afraid they will continue flashing. Is there a pattern? Draw fireflies so you can find them later in daylight. Let them go within a day so your yard will have even more natural glows in the future.
  Families can check on line for more about Fireflies at http://creationwiki.org/Firefly. Also, to see the famous firefly light symphony of the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and other National Parks at

http://www.firefly.org/synchronous-fireflies.html
Photos: 
Fireflies: https://www.flickr.com/photos/anitagould/2644364956/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firefly_composite.jpg
Fireworks: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos 
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Pop! Bubbles are Fun

Dry spring days are good for playing with bubbles:

What you will need:

 The ingredients for the following bubble recipe which you will mix gently:

1/4 cup liquid dishwashing detergent

 3/4 cup cold water

5 drops of glycerin (available at most drugstores or cake supply stores) or light corn syrup. This helps the bubbles be stronger. The solution gets better with age!

You will also need some objects with holes (or create your own) and a container for mixing as well as a flat shallow container.

What to do:

  Using the recipe for making bubbles, Gracie and I poured the ingredients into a container and stirred gently. We let the solution sit while we hunted for objects that had holes in them. We found a fly swatter, a colander, a slotted spoon, an apple slicer, a straw, and a spatula with holes. I dug up some pipe cleaners that we bent as well as an old hanger.

   Gracie helped me pour some of the bubble solution into a cake pan so we could dip the objects into the solution. We covered the container with the extra bubble solution to save for another day. Together we carried everything outside to the back yard. We dipped and waved each object. It was fun to watch Gracie as she experimented with each object. We made guesses as we used each object as to what size bubble or how many bubbles we would see as we waved the objects in the air. Then we wondered if we twirled would we get different bubbles. So then we experimented with that idea.

  We discussed the idea of trying to catch a bubble on an object or our soapy hands. We studied it until it broke. Gracie and I talked about the colors we could see in some of the bubbles. That led Gracie to ask if we could add color to the solution and so we added some food coloring. Different colors appeared. We played until the solution in the cake pan was gone. Clean up was easy as everything just needed water to be clean again.

How will this help children?

Experimenting is a great way to explore the young child’s world. It allows for mistakes, as well as successes. Experimenting also allows for rich discussion on what might happen, what did happen and why did it happen? That is science, after all. It is a great way to problem solve as well.

What else can I do?

You can visit the local library and look for books about bubbles. A few suggestions are: “Bubble Trouble” by Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar, ‘Bubble Trouble “by Joy N. Hulme and Mike Cressy,” Benny’s Big Bubble” by Jane O’Connor and Tomie dePaola, and “Bubble Bath Pirates” by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. 

For more great educational activities visit Grandparents Teach, Too web page and listen to WNMU Radio 90 Learning Through the Seasons Podcasts   

Photos:
Enright, John. 20121001_161951.jpg. 2012. Pics4Learning. 13 Jun 2013
Bonsall, Dawn. img_2127.jpg. June 25, 2007. Pics4Learning. 13 Jun 2013