Using a spoon and two dishes of dry beans, quinoa, barley, rice, noodles or whatever you have on hand, scoop from one bowl to another. Or you can add a third empty bowl for mixing the two ‘ingredients’. This is great to develop hand/eye coordination AND it’s fun.
Squirt some white fluffy shaving cream (the traditional style not gel) on a tray or on a smooth washable surface. Put an old t-shirt or a smock on your little one(s) and allow them to smoosh the shaving cream around with their fingers. Encourage them to draw shapes or letters in the cream. Discuss words like ‘smooth’, ‘soft’, ‘squishy’, ‘slippery’, etc.
For smaller children who still put things in their mouths, use the extra creamy style whipped cream instead of shaving cream.
Don’t like the mess? Try putting some shaving cream into a gallon sized ziplock bag. (Squeeze out the extra air) Your child can draw on and smoosh the bag….mess free!
Have FUN!
Do a ‘smell’ study. Put the following samples into small yogurt cups (or any small cup that you have.)
Chocolate syrup
Toothpaste or Mint extract
Mustard
Ketchup
Peanut Butter
Lemon slice or lemon juice
Pickle Juice
Vanilla Extract
Next tie a loose blindfold over your child’s eyes and ask them to use their sense of smell to tell you what is in the container.
My 4 year old guessed them all. My 3 year old needed some clues and still missed a few. So we smelled them all again with the blindfold off. Then we drew a picture of what we did on a piece of paper. When asked to describe their pictures they described the following. My son (4 yrs) drew a picture of his nose (with nostril) and ‘smell’ molecules going into his nose from a cup that a hand was holding. The ‘smell’ molecules were from the vanilla. My daughter (3yrs) drew a picture a hand holding a cup and inside the cup was mustard.
The whole experiment including follow-up took about 1/2 hour but it excited the children so much to be ‘real scientists’. Try it today with your little ones!
Coda 4yrs:
Braelie 3yrs:
