Winter Sensory Ice

 

 

 

This past summer a parent gave me a bag of brand new petri dishes. I love getting things that have endless possibilities, are reusable, and something I cannot find at the dollar store or my junk drawer. As I sit here and write I'm still thinking of what else I could do with them... (Future blog post!?)  

 

 Because we live in Canada and because it's winter we have a little thing called ice. The children have been particularly interested in it in our toddler room, and let us know whenever they see it. Petri dishes.... ice.. petri dishes.. ice.. aha!

 

I grabbed some pine needles from outside, a bag of cranberries, and an orange we had in the fridge and sliced them up very thin. Next, put them in the petri dishes, filled them with water, and stuck them in the freezer.  

 

A couple hours later they were frozen and time to play with. I placed them all in the sink and ran the hot water over them so they would come out easily.

 

 

I was quite surprised to find the aromas were quite strong, which was an added bonus.

 

 

 

I put the ice disks in a sensory bin and threw in some regular ice cubes and cranberries with it. I knew once the children started playing with it the ice would melt and give some water in there as well.

 



 

The children got their hands right in there despite it being cold. (They told me right away, "Cold Leslie...cold..") They held the disks up to their noses and told me what they smelt, they stacked the ice into towers, and they even tried to break them to get the stuff in the middle out. They weren't sure what the cranberries were so we investigated them a little further. Some of them ate them and were not impressed. 

Because they continue talking about the ice we are currently providing icy invitations for them.

 

We froze a bunch of different size containers and balloons and set them outside to freeze. We added colors to the balloons to make them a little more fun.

 

 

Because ice melts or floor had lots of puddles on it. Everyone got a paper towel and helped us clean up.

 

 

They took their job very seriously, not missing any water.....

 

-Leslie Dionne

 



To Trap or Not to Trap...

         A group of the children took some sticks and made a simple trap. "Look Leslie we made a trap and we're going to catch something." I smiled and suggested they find some type of food to put underneath it to lure them in.

         The next day the food was gone, but the trap was empty. The children were a little frustrated they got "skunked."

This is how it all began...... 

 

 

          The group of children decided they needed to make a bigger and better trap, and told me "they didn't need any help because this was a job for the boys."

 

 

They began to dig a hole under the tree house. They worked on the hole for about two days to get it nice and deep so the animal couldn't escape.  

 



 

The next step was to add walls for a foundation.

 

 

 

Last but not least they needed branches to act as camouflage.  

 

The group of boys were quite proud of their trap and were very confident their design would be successful, there was just one problem; the girls.

 

When the girls found out what the boys were trying to do they got quite upset.

"LESLIE! YOU CANNOT ALLOW THEM TO TRAP BUNNIES! THIS IS HORRIBLE! HOW COULD YOU!?" 

 

There were words. There was screaming. There were a little bit of tears. All I said to them was the boys had every right to build their trap.

 

 

The next day one of the girls brought in a bag of carrots for the bunnies. The boys said, "perfect you can give us some and we can put them in our trap!" (We all knew that wasn't about to happen)

 

Instead of arguing with the boys the girls brought in carrots and decided to build their "Bunny Shelter". The carrots in their shelter would deter the bunnies away from the boys trap, and into the house. (smart!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls worked together and built quite the shelter for the bunnies. When we went inside for snack the boys were trying to trade and negotiate to get some carrots.

 

 

The girls were on to them so they had no luck. The next day there were a lot of carrots in everybody's lunch boxes. When we all went outside there was a bunny in between the house and the trap. Of course the kids were so excited they bolted towards it and it ran off into our woods. At that moment everyone was so excited to actually see a bunny that they didn't even care about trapping it. We talked about how bunnies scare very easily and agreed we wouldn't try to chase them, rather, welcome them to our yard.

 

When we went inside I had an invitation set up for the children.

 

 

 

They all picked numbers and were put into a random group. They had to discuss amongst their group if they wanted to build a house or a trap. It was nice to see a healthy debate on what they should build. We ended up having some houses and some traps....

 

 

-Leslie Dionne

 

 

 

 

 

Art Journals

The afterschoolers were obsessed with the smelly markers I brought in for them. Every day they would run off the bus and ask "Can we draw with the smelly markers?!" Forget hello, forget snack, forget waiting for the other buses.

Day after day they would create amazing drawings and usually their pictures would get ripped, left behind, or thrown away. This is when I decided we needed our very own art journals.

I went to the dollar store and got every child their own note pad filled with blank paper. The next day we covered the top with blank paper and I let the kids personalize their cover however they wanted.  

Once they made their journals we were ready to bring out our inner artists! I decided Wednesday would be our journal day because it's always a half day. I also decided to do "themes" for each week. Now I know most people hear "themes" and think we're being too structured, however, this provides opportunity to learn about different types of art and use different materials. It's always very open and the children like to share at the end what they created. 

We cut out pictures from magazines and let it inspire one of our pictures. They could use however many pictures they wanted. 

The great thing about our journals is we are able to take them outside. We all went to the woods one day, found our own spot, and began to draw. 

The children were able to find things from nature to add to their pictures and be inspired from their natural surroundings. 

Overall the art journals have been such a fun process for everyone. Everyone always participates because they want to, not because they have to. They come off the bus Wednesday wondering what this weeks theme will be or what type of materials we will be using. I tried not to share too much as once they are full the children will be taking them home. I will continue brainstorming different ideas to keep the journals fun and interesting. 

Feel free to leave a comment with some of your ideas! 

                                                                          - Leslie Dionne