Halloween science

Here are some Halloween science ideas that we are going to consider doing this month.

1. Sink snd float experiment witches couldron

I thought you could do this with candy or bits of nature collected or even general household items.

Easy experiment does the item float of sink ??

2. Twig/nature skeleton

I have seen a brilliant nature skeleton and really want to try and do it this year if we get chance.

3. Magnetism ghost

To do this you simply attach string to a paper clip and the opposite end Sellotape to a surface. You then attach the paper lip to a paper ghost. Using a magnet you can make it look like the ghost is floating.

4. Make slime

There are many different ways to make slime. When I do it I will update this post which I liked best.

5. Balloon rocket ghost or witch on a broom stick

A balloon rocket is basically a balloon attached to a straw which is threaded on a wire (fishing wire works best). Decorate the balloon to look like whatever and blow it up the let it go and it should move along the string.

6. Density potions

Mix liquids with different densities such oil, treacle , water and syrup they seperate when mixed and it looks good.

7. Make various luminaries to explore light

Using tin cans pierce them to allow light to shine out of them. 

8. Pumpkin float or sink

To investigate if different parts of the pumpkin float or sink.  Also various size pumpkins.

9. Chromatography

Draw a Halloween picture on filter paper and add a drop of water and watch the colours seperate.

We will probably try a pumpkin first.

10. Mixing potions 

Sodium bicarbonate and vinegar is always good fun.

11. Ice play melting

I have bought some Halloween ice cube trays and made milk ghosts and orange pop pumpkins. Not sure what they will come out like.

12. Static electricity ghost

To make a ghost out of tissue paper or grease proof paper may work. Rub it with a plastic ruler and it should stand up with the ruler.

13. Shadow puppets 

Halloween themed puppet show. I got a template and ued them to make the puppets. 

14. Rolling pumpkins

You could talk about kinetic movement energy and investigate the mass and how fast they roll down a ramp.

15. Creepy crawlies magnifying glass 

To have an insect hunt to try classify the bugs.

16. Inflating ghost / pumpkin

This is done by releasing carbon dioxide tk inflate a balloon attached to a bottle 

You can do this with baking soda and vinegar or yeast and warm sugar water.

17. Egg smoke bombs 

To explore diffusion as the egg shells filled with talc and smashed the talc diffuses and spreads out .

19. Fizzing pumpkins

We tried this with sodium bicarbonate and vinegar as well as effervescent vitamin C tablets and warm water.

20. Ghost rockets

Decorate a bottle as a ghost and add a mento style mint to fizzy pop like lemonade or come . Turn it upside down and the reaction will force the bottle up.

21. Halloween light table 

To place led lights in a box and have a variety of Halloween objects to explore.

22. Bouncy goblin eggs

35 Street sign post ideas

1. Finger letter tracing

To trace the letters on the sign with your fingers.  My son came up with this, you could then reproduce the sign at home on paper.

2. Wash

You could take a bucket of water an sponge and clean the signs which teaches them about helping keep their community clean.

3. Water brush trace

A similar activity to number one but with a paintbrush and a pit/bucket of water.  Again good for learning the alphabet and could be continued st home with writing materials.

4. Copy Writing

You could take a writing pad and write the road names of all your local roads.

5. Postcard image

A sketch pad would be just as good to draw the sign post and the surround area like a postcard.

6. Water pistol target practise

You could take a water pistol out and ask them to locate letters and shoot them.  My son loved this, first time he shot letters as I said to based on the sign. The second time we searched for letters on alphabetical order which meant we had to revisit some signs.

 

7. Match 

To have cards/photos of the sign in a basket for them to search through when you get to a sign and match it. 

8. Body shape letters 

To use your body to recreate the letters seen on the sign. Obviously some easier than others. You could then take photos and collard them to make a body shape road sign.

9. Number of letters tally

You could produce a tally chart to record how many letter A's you have seen. You could have valves versus consonants or letters of their name.

10. Hidden words

This is for older children, you could look for words in sequence hidden in the sign. Such as Haden hill road you can pick out Had, den hi, ill.

  

11. Measuring signs

You can measure the signs with tape to order the biggest - smallest.

12. Water balloon target practise.

To throw water balloons at certain letters. Remember to pick up the litter.

 

13. Map

To follow a map or produce a map of your local signs.

14. Sequence in alphabetical order 

After visiting the signs and record them you must put them in alphabetical order and revisit them in sequence.

15. Photograph

 

You photograph them to use for lots of the other activities.  

16. Playdoh 

You could take a board and playdoh out to make a model of the sign. A photograph of the sign can also be used as a playdoh template. 

17. Verbal journey recording

A to route throttle tge neighbourhood can be decided and they can follow the route and verbally record the journey . This can be used to write a set of direction to follow next time.

18. Follow verbal directions

The directions can be from a previous journey . They are told the directions to follow either by you ir a voice recording they/you made previously.

19. Magnetic spell board

You can take a magnetic whiteboard and the magnetic letters and copy the sign. Photos can also be taken to use again.

20. Prize hunt

Small prizes can be hidden behind the signs for them to collect on the journey.

21. Hidden message

A set of clues and a letter can be hidden  at the sign to spell out a hidden message. So the letter can be the 'first letter' and a glue might be " the next sign is by a post box".

22, Name extraction

To help recognise and spell their name them could search for a sign that they can spell their name in if this isn't possible maybe search for the one with the most letters of their name or mom and sad or other family members.

23. Spelling soup

To use the letters of the sign as the letters in a spelling soup. The idea is to make as many words as they can. A magnetic white board with letters might be handy for this.

24. Sign to image converting 

To come up with an image that represents a sign . So meadow drive I would draw a meadow. 

25. Journey stick

To create a stick that represents the signs on your journey. So for example if you have been to green drive take something green and put it on your journey stick. It can be items that you find at the sign to help them remember the journey or items that represent the name of the sign. The stick vmcan be used to retell the events of the journey or write a story.

26. Musical sign

I'm sure all the neighbours would love you to use the signs to make music.

27. Footsteps

To count footsteps in between signs.

28. Pipe cleaner sign

To take pipe cleaners out to make a copy of the sign.

29. Stringy sign

Using the same principle make a string version off a sign. 

30. Chalkboard

To take a chalkboard and copy write the sign. A pavement option can be used if you clean up after.

31. Nature writing

You could use twigs, leaves and other bits of nature to copy write the sign.

32. Eat a sign

Use the sign post for the inspiration of snacks made with fruit, veg, biscuits or chocolate spread writing on toast.

33. Candy sign post

To make a candy sign post either out in the neighbourhood or back home .

34. Toy sign post

Use toys to write the sign post name

35. Toy adventure 

To use their favourite toys to explore sign posts . My son used his avengers to climb up the signs and talk to each other about the street name.  The toys can be combined with the use or development of a map.

Fizzing and foaming pumpkin fakers

We had lots of oranges in the fruit bowl that had been their for a while so I decided to test the new pumpkin carve set and do some Halloween science too.

So we carved a face into an orange.

We added a vitamin C effervescent tablet and then Dylan squirted the orange juice onto it.

This is what happened.

We practised sucking up more juice .

Then we tried the baking soda and vinegar.

Great fun. I thought the orange effervescent tablets would foam more orange but there was just a little fizzing the baking soda was better. We will try orange food coloring next year.

Dylan 2.11

Beaded pumpkin

As part of our non-carve pumpkin fun we decided to use beads. For this we used the small pumpkin.

I placed double sided sticky tape on the pumpkin and left Dylan to stick the beads on.

This was a totally fun activity although it can be used for colour and numeracy learning at a late date.

How?

I can ask him to count the beads , add and subtract.

I could ask him to match the colour sequence with beads on a piece of paper or simply using crayons/felts.

I could also use it as a threading activity but these beads are too small for Dylan's tiny hands.

I could ask him to rearrange the beads in a certain sequence ie the rainbow.

Again another quick and easy activity but supervision is required as the beads are a chocking hazard.

Dylan 2.11

Googley eyed pumpkin

A good way to decorate pumpkins without mess and looks funky.

I simply placed double sided sticky tape tot he googley eyes and my two year old put them

Where he wanted.

Moving them around develops fine gross skills further. 

Dylan 2.11

Pumpkin mad hatter!

This was a totally off the cuff activity inspired by my sons hat on the dining room table as we did other activities

I think we needed a bigger pumpkin but it was still very funny trying on hats ourselves and making the pumpkin into different people.

This has sparked a new idea to do other dress up items like glasses, moustaches, scarves and ties.

This encourages imaginative play and role playing characters. Great fun and very easy to do. Give it a try.

Dylan 2.11

Chalky pumpkin

This activity was quick and easy but wasn't that impressed with how well it worked,

Maybe as we polished it first it redipuced the quality of the chalk drawn on.  However Dylan seemed to like this and it was after many other pumpkin activities too.

An extension of this could be to paint the pumpkin with chalkboard paint first.

Dylan 2.111

Musical pumpkin

We had been reading a book for the VBC that is called animal music. So the instruments were out as we role played to book. So they gave me an idea to use the pumpkin as a percussion instrument a drum.

Away he went using the xylophone like a symbol on a drum set.

He enjoyed this so much he told everyone about it days after.

I thought you could play a game using labeled pumpkins by asking them to hit a certain pumpkin.

You could also do an experiment listening to how it sound different when hollow p, filled with water or a different size.

 Dylan 2.11

Pumpkin plaster removal

After the plaster sticking activity and the dr check-up the removal of these plasters and bandages can be an activity practising fine motor skills. I can also prepare him for removal of plasters when he allows us to out them on him. 

Dylan's skills in this type of activity have improved really quickly. He even works out the best method of extraction.

Dylan 2.11

Plaster pumpkin

During the pumpkin check up doctor Dylan noticed a mark that he said was a cut and to put a plaster on. I had to open them and he put them on. He has got much better at handling plasters. He is a nightmare to get to have a plaster on so hoping this will help. I have a bunch of old plasters that I kept for craft purposes.  We also had a few of the new coloured plasters I bought to motivate him to wear one when he needs one obviously not as a fashion statement. 

After he had finished he did more doctor type checks from the previous activity.

He loved this and even more he loved the removal.

Dylan 2.11

Squirty cream pumpkin

This started as pretend medicine and ended up pasting the squirty cream all over.

He wasn't very keen to get the cream on his hands as he is funny like that.

But soon forgot about it and enjoyed it.

Dylan 2.11

Pumpkin check-up

Dylan loves his doctor set and was very excited to use it on the pumpkin.

We have a doctors set of the usual apparatus. So he went through the typical motions of a check-up.

Obviously he had to use his imagination  for things like the ear check.

This lasted quite long and developed into other activities such as -

Pumpkin cream pasting 

Pumpkin plaster placing and removal.

Pumpkin bandage placing and removal.

Dylan 2.11

Pumpkin polishing

After cleaning the pumpkin of the felt from the last activity, I gave Dylan a polishing cloth to make it really shiny.

Simple activity that also teaches about chores like washing and polishing.

Didn't last long, we did this last year too he still liked it. But he was more interested in what was coming next....... Pumpkin check-up.

Dylan 2.11

Pumpkin name peel

It had been a while since our last pumpkin activity of drawing and foam name sticking. So we cleaned off the pumpkin ready for the next one. Then I thought this is a valuable fine motor skills activity plus recap on the last activity of name recognition. 

This activity can be done straight after or leave it on show for a while.

Dylan 2.11

Baby sensory club- B is for Balls the plan

I remember my three year old loved balls and still does so having balls as a focus seems worth while.

What can we do ?

Sight: see balls of different sizes and colours.

Hearing: use of musical instrument and singing. Songs played about balls . (Made a list on YouTube)

Taste: maybe ball shaped food. I thought make melon balls.

Touch: feel the different textured balls

Smell: 

Art/craft: hand/footprint animals,  foam animal sticking.

Messy play: play with paint after printing

Role play: dress up as animals

Explore & discover: animal sounds, animal patterns/ colours and shapes

Physical activity: action sounds about animals, playing instruments

Book club: Bear snores on :-will fit in as Karma Wilson is the virtual book club featured author for November.

Bring a favourite animal book to share and read.

Follow up ideas- teddy journal, visit a farm, sign animal songs and do animal noises from session.  Do other animal hand/footprint. 

Feel different balls

Play in ball pit

Bring fav ball

Bouncy ball painting or marble painting

Football dress up

Explore and discover action of balls

Ball games

Playdoh balls

Ball game diary

Pom Pom ball letter art

Sound- bouncing balls, marbles

Outside ; Balls down slide or bounce with balls

Baby sensory club: A is for animals (THE PLAN)

My friends and I have decided to make our own baby sensory club. 

We have decided to go with an Alphabet theme where we take a letter and explore something that begins with that letter. 

So for instance we are doing A is for animals .

Planning ahead

What you need you to bring (if you can)

A favourite stuffed animal teddy 

A animal storybook 

An animal themed outfit

An animal figure

Animal fabrics

Animal dress up items

An apron

A bumbo chair / mat 

Resources you will use

Paint/paper

Stuffed animal teddies

Animal figure toys

Animal flashcards/pictures

Animal sounds

Musical instruments

Ideas of animal sounds plus lyrics if unknown

Animal print/style fabrics

Animal themed dress up items

Foam animals

Animal cutters

Playdoh

Animal biscuits

A place to visit real animal (if possible)

Sensory checklist  

Sight: see toy animals , animated animals and real animals on screen and possibly in real life.

See patterns and variety of colours of fabrics.

Hearing: use of musical instrument and singing. Songs played about animals. Listen to animal noises.

Taste: babies old enough could try animal biscuits or a selection of foods from animals. Could make edible paint. 

Touch: feel the cuddly teddies, fabrics, real animals as well as toy animals. Touch paint and print onto paper.  Make playdoh animal shapes.

Smell: can add scent to the paint and make edible paint. Smell animals in their habitat. Scented playdoh.

Art/craft: hand/footprint animals,  foam animal sticking.

Messy play: play with paint after printing

Role play: dress up as animals

Explore & discover: animal sounds, animal patterns/ colours and shapes

Physical activity: action sounds about animals, playing instruments

Book club: Bear snores on :-will fit in as Karma Wilson is the virtual book club featured author for November.

Bring a favourite animal book to share and read.

Follow up ideas- teddy journal, visit a farm, sign animal songs and do animal noises from session.  Do other animal hand/footprint. 

I will scan my sons hand print animal to get a digital image to keep.

I am looking forward to seeing what actually happens and will feedback the best activities and share artwork and favourite shots. 

Sarah 

xxx

A-Z Science: N is for Night

So fellow bloggers are exploring a night theme.

So we decided to explore our garden at night time. We had a torch and off we went. We even had a night time bounce on the trampoline and the looked at the stars. 

We searched for animals and listened out for sounds. Unfortunately we only heard a motorbike. We saw a moth and was frightened by a bird flapping its wings. We couldn't see or draw the moon so that's an activity for another day!

He was so excited when I told him earlier that day. 

Dylan 2.11

N is for night: Fruity stars

After our evening exploring the stars I thought it would be nice to continue talking about stars. I wanted to use some milky stars chocolate to make constellations, letters, numbers and shapes but found a healthier option in the cupboard. Some fruit stars that look like sweets but are made from fruit and contain less sugar.

So first he made a starry night sky

The letters, numbers and shapes

A circle

Then he ate them!

Dylan 2.11

Halloween sensory tub

 

I have seen many different sensory tubs or bins and never really been sure whether I could make one just as good or that my son would be interested. I love Halloween season so I thought why not give it a try.

The look on his face and the amusement he got was mad! 

What was in our tub?

Red split lentils

Black beans

Halloween chocolate balls

Pumpkin scoopers

Baby milk scoops

Toy spider, wolf, pumpkin scarecrow from bob the builder

Orange net bag 

Glow torch

Glow stick

Toy pumpkin

Mini pumpkin

Containers

Black lace

I know random but I tried to cover all senses and improvised with what I had in.

First time using one but we still played as well as practising making letters, numbers and shapes. We talked about textures, colours and size. Burying the glow torch or spider was amusing.

I have kept it to play with tomorrow. I will certainly try it again.

Dylan 2.11

Fall Playdough Recipe ~ Learn Play Imagine

Fall Playdough Recipe ~ Learn Play Imagine

Check out the fall activity series.
My son and I collected leaves and did some fab printing . See the link below.

http://littlebrightsparks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/leaf-printing.html

Thomas Tank Engine Lego number train.

My son has a collection of Thomas the tank Lego that you can take apart.  He likes playing switch up with the different trains.  We decided to use the number Lego blocks and make the train version that he has requested from an advert on the telly.

We took all the train pieces off so we were left with the base of the train and then sequenced the numbers and found the matching object version . We placed them on the train. A slight problem in that the blocks over hang the base but to overcome this you need to hook the trains together before you ad the blocks.

We put Thomas' face at the front and the coal block at the back.

He had to take it slow pulling it along but he enjoyed it. He even got the spare Thomas train to attach to the number train.

Then I asked him to point out the numbers and count the objects.

He pulled the train near the fridge where the number magnets that he loves are. I suggested that he matches the numbers up and placed them on top of the right block. He rushed to get them on soon completed the task with delight. Not in sequence but who cares?

He then checked to see if he was right and moved them to stand up in front of the block.

We only had one one so the zero was by the ten and we moved the one when we got to the ten when counted.  The other number one was placed in a hole at the back of my washing machine ?????

This was an off the cuff activity inspired by a tv advert and Dylan's desire for a number train.

He definitely loves his numbers! Bless him my budding mathematician. 

Dylan 2.11