Painting With Ice Cubes

As a 'go along' activity to our science lesson on freezing liquids, we painted with ice cubes!

This was FUN and their paintings were so pretty!

The girls simply added food coloring to the water in the ice cube trays before I popped them in the freezer.

(They were equally as delighted with this aspect. Watching the food coloring swirl around in the water is rather mesmerizing.)

The next day we had our chilly painting utensils.

In fact, they were so chilly that the girls ended up grabbing spoons to push their ice cubes around with!

Initially, it looked almost like crayon marks but as the ice cubes began to melt they resembled watercolors.

In the light of the afternoon sun flowing through our kitchen window, this was a perfect and peaceful moment. 

Give it a try!

Simple. Easy. Fun!

Ice-cream-in-a-bag!

Last week was our March break and every single day Piper asked if we could do school work.

Being the mean mother that I am, I said no!

As much as I was tempted myself to pull out some work, I think it's good to really take a break once in a while!

So Piper was thrilled Monday night to hear that we were starting back to school the next day!

What a girl!

But I can't blame her - we do have so much fun!

Like today.

We made ice cream.

I don't remember science lessons ever being this awesome!

The girls are learning about how liquids freeze when they become cold enough.

The manual suggested making ice cream in a bag.

I honestly thought this one would be a flop.

I mean, really?

Shake a bag and voila - ice cream??

As it turns out, I was wrong and the kids were super excited to eat ice cream in the morning!

Give it a try and amaze your kids!

Here's what you do:

1. Fill a ziploc sandwich bag with 1 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

2.  Make sure to squeeze as much air out of it as you can before you zip it.

3. Place it inside another ziploc sandwich bag. (Again, squeeze out the air.)

4. Next, pour one tray of ice cubes into a large ziploc bag.

5. Place the bag of milk and sugar in it and pour a second tray of ice cubes over top of it.

6. Add 1/4 cup of salt to the bag of ice.

7. Squeeze out as much air as possible and zip it up.

8. Wrap the bag up in a large bath towel.

9. Place the towel wrapped bag in a grocery bag.

10. Shake for 15 minutes.

Open it up and you have a whole baggy of ice cream!

(And sore arms since you'll likely do 98% of the shaking!)

Yay! Science is fun!

(Who knew?!)

*We're using Elemental Science's Exploring Science and loving it! Except that we've been slackers when it comes to getting around to it on a regular basis. I have no idea why since we all love it every single time but I guess it just takes a back burner to other subjects. I'm thinking summer school will be all science experiments. It's a win-win situation - we get all caught up and get to do science experiments every day!! Plus each lesson has a nature study component that is way more plausible when it's nice out! 

A Desert Detour

A few weekends ago Piper ever so sweetly asked if we could learn about the desert.

I'm not quite sure where the request came from but obviously she had heard something, somewhere about deserts and it had piqued her interest.

It was the first time she has ever made a special request in terms of her learning and thankfully our schedule is flexible enough that I could accommodate her!

Sunday night I searched around for some age appropriate material and finally settled on The Desert Habitat Unit at Teachers Pay Teachers.

It was well worth the few dollars I paid!

We spent time learning about the different animals and plants that are found in the desert and how they survive.

We talked about what mammals, reptiles, plants and arachnids are.

Piper then did a related activity sheet in which she had to catergorize the animals and plants shown.

This was followed with graphing her findings.

The girls learned many new vocabulary words.

We also learned some interesting facts about desert mice and iguanas.

We went on to compare the two animals and used a Venn diagram to record our findings.

Piper made a video asking what everyone's favorite desert animal is.

I posted it on Facebook and waited for people to vote!

We then took the data obtained from our 'questionaire' and filled in a graph!

Iguana won!

Piper loved this whole activity!

The girls also learned about cacti.

They made this paper craft and labeled it appropriately.

On the bottom, I recorded Piper's answer to "A cactus survives in the desert because..."

Our kitchen was full of desert info by the end of the week! 

We took a trip to a local greenhouse to observe some cacti.

Of course, we had to purchase the prettiest one!!

We did an experiment related to cacti, too.

We took 4 pieces of paper towel.

We wet each of them.

The first we laid flat, the second we rolled up, the third we scrunched up in a ball and the fourth we rolled and wrapped with wax paper.

Here Piper is making her predictions of what she thinks will happen.

She thought the one scrunched up in a ball would stay wet.

The next day we checked out what had happened.

ALL the paper towel was dry except the one wrapped in wax paper.

It was still soaking wet.

This provided a great opportunity to talk about the purpose of the cactus's waxy skin.

Finally, we did some sand art.

The girls enjoyed this so much!

There were so many cute little looks of concentration as they carefully worked at layering the sand in their bottles.

And they were so proud of the final products!

That was our desert week!

Time well spent even if it was a bit spontaneous!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar {Tot School}

A couple of weeks ago, Piper attended a summer camp at a local church.

That meant that for 5 mornings in a row I was down to 2 kids!

Considering that the babe naps for much of the morning, it ended up being quite the break everyday!

It's too strange not having all my kiddies with me every day but I took advantage of the alone time with Taitum and planned a whole week of activities surrounding The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Here is what we did!

First, she created the leaf with the egg on it by do-a-dotting a leaf green and adding a marshmallow as the egg.

I put this little counting activity on the fridge for her.

Each leaf had a number and she had to put the correct number of eggs (pom pom magnets) on each one.

Another day she made the classic egg carton caterpillar by painting the egg carton strip and adding anntenae and eyes.

She then helped me prepare a game to go along with her caterpillar by cutting out the pictures of food I had printed.

For the game, she would find and count the right food that the caterpillar ate as I came to it in the story.

It was pretty simple but she loved it especially since I added eating noises as she fed the caterpillar!

(Find the food printable here!)

Next, we went to work on a chrysalis.

I thought Tait would love paper mache since she adores sensory play but she ended up being totally grossed out by the feel of the water and flour mixture and I ended up doing the grand majority of it!

Piper helped her paint it after it had dried.

It's hanging on the wall in the kitchen right now and I plan to fill it with butterfly treats to surprise them some day soon! 

Likely after my next trip to Bulk Barn!

We added a little adventure to our learning by travelling out to a local fruit stand.

Taitum was in charge of finding the fruit that the very hungry caterpillar ate and counting out the right number of each.

She was thrilled to get to push the cart around and do her very own grocery shopping!

She couldn't wait to show Piper when she got home and both girls become very hungry caterpillars and gobbled it all up!

Piper joined us in our butterfly project.

The plan was to do a crayon resist painting.

Tait opted out of the crayon part and simply painted her butterfly while Piper did the crayon resist.

So there you have it!

The life cycle of a butterfly on our kitchen wall!

Now we are keeping our eyes open for butterflies and caterpillars when we're playing outside.

We did find some eggs on a leaf a few days ago!

We also watched this video which I found simply amazing!

The whole metamorphosis of a butterfly is so amazing!

I even learned some new things from the facts included in the video!

This week made me really miss our school time.

We really do have so much fun together!

I'm trying my best to chill out and enjoy these warm summer days but truth be told - I'm quite anxious for school to begin again!

Ha!

I never thought I'd say such a thing!

But I've been working hard on the coming years lesson plans and getting so excited for what is in store for me and my little gals this year!

Hawaii @ Home!

Once we finished up our work with Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear last week, we hopped right into a new book: Hawaii is a Rainbow!

I had already decided to do a Hawaiian theme with the girls since their Nana and Boppa had just returned from vacationing there.

The problem was finding a book featuring Hawaii!

My search lead to this one at our local library.

I wasn't over the moon about it but it did give Taitum a chance to review all the colors she's been learning!

For each color there are photos of things in Hawaii.

I did appreciate that in the back of the book they explain more thoroughly what each of the pictures are.

We began our Hawaiin study by talking about the weather there.

Because it is so warm and sunny I also pointed out the importance of wearing sunscreen and protecting your skin from the sun.

We did an experiment to go along with this - a sunscreen experiment!

The girls applied sunscreen to one side of a piece of black construction paper.

Then they taped them on the deck outside and left them there for the day.

At the end of the day, they went back to see what had happened.

 The areas with no sunscreen were quite faded while the area where the sunscreen had been applied was still black!

We talked about just how strong the sun is and that this is the reason Mommy is so adamant about applying sunscreen to them when they go outside for long periods of time!

In Hawaii is a Rainbow, we learned about lauhala - a type of leaf the Polynesians used to weave various items.

(If you look closely, you can see a photo of someone weaving with lauhala in the book beside Piper.)

So the girls did some weaving, too!

They used ribbon and this wire contraption I got for free at a yard sale!

(Any idea what it actually is??)

Tait became frustrated rather quickly with this exercise and soon scampered off but Piper thoroughly enjoyed it!

I think I need to come up with some other weaving projects for her!

And what is an Hawaiian themed week without a trip to the beach?!

We ventured off to a nearby lake and spent the morning building sandcastles, burying ourselves in the sand and splashing around in the water!

We spent a day learning about waves and surfing.

This included assembling 'wave bottles'.

The girls added water, oil, blue food dye and sparkles to their bottle.

Then they shook away creating some fun and fabulous waves!

Even our littlest student enjoyed this one!

Next I cut out surf boards for them from cardboard.

They had a great ol' time pretending to surf while watching a "Surfing in the USA" youtube video!

Finally, they painted their boards and drew pictures on them!

The girls discovered what an island is!

They colored a map of Hawaii  and found it on our world map.

Then I hauled out the playdough, had them form their own island in a container then filled it with water.

They were delighted to have a little island for their princesses!

This also really helped reinforce the idea that an island is land surrounded by water.

While playing, Piper said her island was a volcano.

I hadn't planned on doing anything about volcanos since we had just learned about them not so long ago but since they are Hawaiian and Piper was interested, I thought "Why not?!".

I hauled out the baking soda and vinegar and the girls went to work, creating one volcanic eruption after another!

Being always enthusiastic about dancing, both girls were overjoyed to learn the hula!

We watched come youtube videos together to see how its done, then practiced it ourselves!

They also colored a picture of a hula dancing girl.

We also learned about palm trees.

There were many pictures their Boppa took of palm trees in Hawaii and the girls really loved looking at them all.

We made our own using a toilet paper roll, twine, fabric, beans, pompoms and a pop bottle.

They turned out to be extremely cute!

Piper and Tait also learned that the hibiscus is the state flower for Hawaii.

They made their own with construction paper, do-a-dot markers and pipe cleaner.

To wrap the week up, we hosted a luau in honor of my Mom and Dad's 30th anniversary!

(Big cheer for 30 years!!)

Much of the girls' work was displayed on the wall for guests to see.

And there was lots of tropical goodies to be had!

(Plus some Vanilla Macadamia Nut Hawaiian coffee straight form Hawaii! Mmmm, good!)

I made some Pina Colada cupcakes for the luau.

Some were simply frosted with a 'Luau Party' cupcake topper.

Others had more of a fun twist and were assembled by Piper herself!

Unfortunately, Piper was not feeling well the evening of the luau.

It slowed her down a bit but we all had a wonderful time celebrating with the girls' Nana and Boppa!

They had leis for everyone, dresses for the girls and a slideshow of pictures for everyone to watch!

The girls' (shyly) did the hula.

And the limbo!

Learning about Hawaii was so much fun!

It was a perfect way to end our school year too!

We are taking the next 2 weeks off, then jumping back into things for a few weeks while Daddy teaches summer school!

Happy summer vacation!!