"Protect the House" Experiment

We have been learning about homes around the world and we wanted to know why houses all over the world are built differently. To test out how houses react to different type of weather, we decided to do an experiment using cardboard boxes as our house and see which type of covering material would work the best to keep rain out. Here is the documentation of our work.

Protect the House Project

Here are the items I provided the children to choose from to cover their house. Glue, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, clear packing tape, masking tape, and construction paper.

Group 1 AM covering it with glue.

 Group 1 AM Pouring the water after glue dried.

 

Results to Group 1 AM- DRY!

Group 2 AM hard at work covering their house with foil.

 Group 2 AM covering it with plastic wrap and clear tape.

Group 2 AM adding their floor. 

 Group 2 AM making it "rain."

Group 2 AM Results- Floor fell apart, but dry on the inside!

Group 1 PM covered their house with plastic wrap and clear tape.

Group 1 PM making it rain.

Group 2 PM Results- A little wet on the edges, but mostly dry.

Group 2 PM covered the holes and cracks with clear tape and then applied glue.

Group 2 PM pouring the water with the watering can.

 Group 2 PM noticed that the glue was starting to wash away, but the inside still wasn't wet. So, we decided to make more dramatic rain by putting our house under the faucet.

Group 2 PM Results- Even after being under the faucet, still DRY inside!!!

This experiment was so much fun. It was interesting that all the groups chose a different method to protect their house. It was also interesting to hear the children's predictions about what was going to happen to the house. They were excited about doing this and the second day when it was time to pour the water, they all wanted to participate. You could've heard a pin drop in a typically very loud classroom as they were waiting to see what would happen! I was even surprised with the results. I thought at least one of the boxes would break apart. Just goes to show, you don't always know what will happen unless you test it out.

What experiments have you done with your kiddos?

If you would like a blank copy of this form to use with your students, you can download it here:
Scientific Method Template

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Storytime Sunday: Snow

Here is my selection of snow/winter books for this week. These are only few of the MANY great children's books about winter. They were just a few I happened to have in my personal collection that I have been using with my son this weekend as we have begun exploring snow. The Snowy Day is an older book that I'm sure most of you have read. I like it because it describes actions that children can replicate in the snow. While not particularly about snow, the book On the Night You Were Born is a wonderful book and there are some really awesome outdoor pictures including the polar bears in the snow.

Here are some photos of my sensory bin I used with my 1 year old. I actually left the blue lights in here from the light box I had made and covered it with a white towel then lined it with cotton balls. The blue lights shine through a little bit, just enough to give it that glow that ice sometimes gets when it's really thick. 

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS WITH THE LIGHTS! I had to take my lights out today because they got nearly hot enough to melt the toys inside. Just use some tissue paper or foam under the towel or no towel at all. Just to eliminate the fire hazard completely. Sorry.

The snowflakes are cut out of wrapping paper. There is metallic wrapping paper for a frozen pond with a small snowman figure.

After L played awhile, I decided to give him another empty bin to transfer the cotton balls into since he mostly wanted to take them out of the bin. Also, we added some measuring cups for scooping and pouring.

 At school, we brought some snow inside as it was too cold to go outside. The kids had a blast with it and wanted some art materials to help them build their snowman. I also brought snow in for L to play with at home this weekend and some ice from our newly working ice maker, but as soon as I went to take the photo, L began to fuss. Figures!

We also made sparkly snowflakes with glitter. We used the printable pattern from here. I was going to let the kids cut them out, but once folded, it was too thick for their little scissors to cut through, so I did it for them.

What books have you been reading about winter?

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Fall Wrap-Up

As we are winding down our fall study, we compared our weather chart that we have been working on to see if the temperatures have been getting colder or warmer. We also did another pumpkin and leaf activity. This is just a center that we put out for children to make pumpkins with gear blocks (IDK what they are really called, so I call them gear blocks). Anyway, I began to think about how I set up centers. One was is just to put out the blocks on the table in the container like this:

While we may be tempted to do this as we might say it evokes more creativity, it is not very inviting and there is no prompt to show children what you want them to do.  So here is how I prepared the center:

With this purposeful planning, you are more likely to get results such as this:

The next activity I did with the kids was one I found on a blog or Pinterest, I can't remember exactly where, but if you happen to know where it came from, please leave me a comment :)

Leaf prints with different colored paint:

And here are the wonderful results!

Thinky Linky Thursday: Look What I Did with a Leaf!

This is the homework that we sent home this week. We read the book Look What I Did with a Leaf as shown in this blog post. The students were supposed to make a figure out of leaves such as a person, animal, etc. Here is what they came up with:

LOVE THIS ONE!

Also, we have been keeping track of the weather and charting it this week. We will continue this next week by drawing a thermometer and seeing where each of the temperatures are on it as the children did not seem to understand the concept of such big numbers and which was higher or lower than the other.

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