Construction

Construction Sensory Bin
As we are living playing in a new neighbourhood that is under construction and the kids are completely obsessed with all of the heavy duty machinery, I figured what better sensory bin than a construction bin! I usually like to set up the bins prior to the children arriving as I enjoy seeing their excitement at all of the fun they are about to have. 

Set up:
I filled our bin full of dirt. Originally I was going to use beans but decided what is better than real dirt! We have been getting a ton of rain here lately so this station might get messy! I was able to find all sorts of little vehicles (rollers, cement mixers, dump trucks, jeeps, front end loaders) at Giant Tiger. I threw in some coloured stones to serve as rocks and later Spider man decided to throw in part of his rock collection as well. For the initial lay out I put a large hill of dirt and a valley running through the box. I had the dump truck dropping its load of rocks into the valley. I always throw in smaller measuring spoons or something that the children can use to scoop with. Some of the kids prefer to use the spoons over their hands. 

Discovery:
The kids loved it! They were so excited to play with miniature replicas of the vehicles they have been seeing around the neighbourhood. They spent over an hour reenacting and creating various construction scenes. Initially there were a lot of questions "What does this vehicle do?" "What should I do?" "Where can I put these rocks?". After answering a few questions such as the names of the machinery that they had forgotten and redirecting a few questions "Where would you like to put the rocks?" I stepped back and allowed their imagination to flow. Moving a few feet away and becoming "busy" with one of the babies allowed Spider man to discover the sensory bin independently and try things out and fully engage in the act of playing. 

When setting up sensory bins or open ended play tasks, I refrain from telling the children how the play should be conducted. It is interesting to see their take on how to play with different objects. Sometimes their play leads me in a completely unexpected direction. That is the beauty of the imagination! 


Spider man (3 y/o boy)
Builder boy (1 y/o boy)
Monkey (1 y/o girl)
Lightning McQueen (9 m/o boy)

Until later!
Alicia

Colours!

We have spent a lot of time discussing colours lately. After completing a mini unit all about rainbows we decided to try out a colour experiment. This task helped to develop our fine motor skills as the tots had to fill their eyedroppers with the coloured vinegar. This was a fairly open ended task with a lot of chance to build on language and inquiry skills.
First we filled tin pans with an inch of baking soda and mini containers full of vinegar. Initially I wanted to only add primary colours to fill our vinegar containers, however I decided that since this was an introductory colour activity, I gave the tots six different colours. Red, yellow, pink, light blue, dark blue and orange. After a demonstration of how to use the eyedroppers, the tots were off. It was interesting to see the various approaches that they took in creating their project. One approach was to put various drops of different colours throughout the pan, another approach was to layer the colours.
I did not to any direct teaching in this lesson, but simply posed questions to get the children interested in exploring and thinking about their project. Below are some of the questions and statements I used to help the children expand upon their thinking.
"I heard a sound when you put the colour in your pan! Did you hear a sound?" (fizzing)
"H, I noticed that you put the blue colour on top of the yellow colour in your pan. What happened when you did that?" (This drew his attention to something he may not have observed on his own.)
"What happened when you put the vinegar onto the baking soda?" (It made little bubbles that quickly disappeared). 
"What colour are you adding now?"
"Do you prefer the light blue or the dark blue?" 

After some time dropping the vinegar into the pans, one tot decided to use his eyedropper to mix up his concoction.
"What happened when you mixed everything up?" (It made clumps of baking soda). 

After about half an hour worth of play, the tots were still into it but looking for a new way to continue their discoveries. They asked for spoons. Using the spoons we mixed, packed, and carved the baking soda and vinegar mixture. This lead to a whole set of observations. The kids created holes in their packed down baking soda and found out that when they put the vinegar into the hole, it disappeared. They also created lines in their packed down baking soda and attempted to have the vinegar "flow" down their roads and rivers.

 All in all this is a good one! We will try it again soon! 
Alicia