Our preschoolers love great sensory experiences! Last week we made slime, and today we tried a variation on the traditional Oobleck recipe. This “Stretchy Oobleck” holds together better than water and cornstarch, and stretches a bit like slime. It smells heavenly, and cleans up easily with water. During centers, the children took turns passing it…
Science
Sensory Slime
Slime is magical, wonderful substance. We made Christmas slime in December that turned into brown mud slime! So in January we decided to try again and make blue slime. The basic slime recipe calls for equal parts liquid starch, white glue and water. We used 1 cup of each and added a few drops of blue…
Clean Mud
This week we cleaned the Insta-Snow out of our sensory table and decided to make clean mud to fill it up. We followed this simple recipe from Happy Hooligans, and it turned out great! It takes only 2 simple ingredients! The students took turns exploring the ivory soap with their senses. We touched it, observed…
Make your own Fossils
During our study of dinosaurs, we learned about fossils. We had made a big batch of cinnamon spice play dough earlier in the month, and decided to use it to make our own little fossils. The students used plastic dinosaurs to make footprints in the dough. We also used seashells and rocks to make prints….
Fizzy Rainbows
What is better than a color theory experiment? A color theory experiment that includes chemistry and fine motor skills to boot! This fizzy rainbow activity is an excellent (and easy!) way to present all 3 things to your preschoolers. Give each student a shallow tray of baking soda. Allow them time to explore it with their senses–…
Sink or Float Experiment
Here’s another fun and easy science experiment– Sink or Float? It’s perfect for the beginning of the preschool year because it teaches important, familiar vocabulary (many students know the word float from swimming) and requires very minimal preparation. That’s my kind of science experiment! We began by talking about the vocabulary (sink and float). The students…
Dirty Pennies
Our Lunch Bunch group was fascinated by this simple science experiment. It was a fun way to introduce the scientific method. First I presented them with a problem. “I have all these dirty old pennies. I really want them to be shiny like my new penny.” The children brainstormed some ideas to clean the penny–…
Oobleck
So many of our students thrive on sensory experiences. Their hands need to be touching, feeling, manipulating and moving all the time. Last week when we were learning about pigs, we mixed up some “mud” for them to play in. The mud is really “Oobleck”– a weird, strangely intriguing corn starch mixture that looks like…
Sugar Science
Our Lunch Bunch enrichment group tried this super-simple, really cool science experiment today. The idea came from a Mailbox Magazine (2009) preschool edition. Supplies: sugar cubes, colored water, tray or shallow dish To begin, we asked our students to observe the properties of a sugar cube. We used sugar cubes in class recently so…