Recently the kids took a Friday afternoon break from the usual D&D activities and we headed to a nearby park for some sledding. We grabbed our gear and eagerly headed out right after school for an hour at the hill. It was a nice break from routine and we can't wait to do it again!
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The kids of Club 4/5 see a blank art canvas when they see snow, and the educators love to provide them with colors for that canvas. Since nature is always a topic of conversation and interest, on this day the children gathered up some animals and trees with the idea of creating a nature scene outside in our forest. Educator Jen filled a spray bottle with green colored water and a huge jar with deep blue colored water for them to use as grass and lakes. She then gave the kids cameras to capture the scenes they made! All the following pictures were taken by the children: There has been a lot of interest in the birds we often see in our forests at Dawn and Dusk - specifically the activities of the woodpeckers. We often seek out trees that have holes made by them, and as one child observed the oak trees have scattered woodpecker holes while the Birch and Poplar trees have holes in straight lines that go around the tree. That child concluded that since Oak trees have such rough and uneven bark, the birds must peck at random, and the smooth trees must be easier to perch on, allowing the birds to peck in a more even line. Our Director Deborah provided the kids with some binoculars, and in no time we were treated to an up-close view of one of these amazing little birds in action! At the request of one of our budding chefs we built in a winter kitchen one afternoon. Choosing items for our dishes and loading them up in a sled, these kids got right to work in their restaurant as soon as we got to the forest, serving up dishes made colorful by the many bottles of brightly colored water we provided. Cakes, pies and more! Fair prices and excellent food are the perfect recipe for a popular restaurant! Can't wait to see what these creative kids come up with next!
The kids at D&D know there are endless possibilities for fun in the snow, which is why we decided to make volcanos on Tuesday afternoon in the bright white field of flakes. The first step was to make mounds of snow, as big or as small as they wanted. Next, they decided how to insert the vinegar/baking soda lava. Educator Jen provided a variety of options like paper cone shaped cups, test tube vials, and long empty bubble wand tubes. And of course, food coloring! There were a lot of discussions on how to perfectly pull off a great explosion. What should go in first, the vinegar or the baking soda? For well over an hour, the Club 4/5 kids experimented and explored the best way to set off the "snowcanoes". Through trial and error we discovered three things; first, making a pile of baking soda right on the snow then pouring vinegar onto it isn't very interesting, because nothing really happens! Second, if you put food coloring directly on baking soda then pour vinegar on top, the color won't travel up into the lava. And lastly, it is not a good idea to mix the ingredients together then try to quickly close the test tube and shake it up haha! (This resulted in some stained hands.) While some of the volcanoes didn't erupt as spectacularly as others, this proved to be a really fun way to spend an afternoon and everyone really enjoyed it. We've got future plans to make bigger, better explosions! "WOOOOOHOOOO!" On this day we used old Crayons to make new art! We took some crayon nubbins and used a pencil sharpener to create colorful wax shavings, then sprinkled the shavings between two pieces of wax paper. Educator Jen used an iron to melt it all together and we ended up with some truly beautiful color melts. Once the wax paper had cooled off we trimmed them into shapes - winding up with some very unique ornaments and suncatchers! A few days later we decided to try pendulum painting - a technique that allows paint to flow freely from a suspended container that swings above canvas or paper. We took this idea outside to paint in the snow, and used the soccer goal posts to hang our paint from. First we tried paper cone cups and discovered that not only did the paint not flow freely from the cups, but they didn't quite swing as smoothly as a pendulum should. Educator Shirley-Ann suggested it's because the goal posts are square shaped and not round, and off she went into the forest to find a good tree branch we can hang our paint from. While she was gone we tried different ways to suspend condiment containers full of paint, hoping they'd flow better than the flimsy paper cups. It was a real challenge to figure out how to tie our yarn around those smooth, round bottles! When the condiment containers didn't work, we used juice bottles and poked holes in the lid before tying them up. This also proved to be unsuccessful - which was ok because that just meant we could squirt out the paint by hand and make designs, which everyone loves to do anyways! A few days later, Educator Jasbir introduced an interesting art activity called Magic Letters. She showed the kids how to write and draw invisibly with white crayons before lightly painting overtop to reveal their creations! Another fun, interesting art activity that we can't wait to try again!
The Club 4/5 crew are up for anything that involves mixing and making. A recent experiment making bath bombs with epsom salts ignited a whole bunch of new ways to use salt for science and for art! Here, these budding scientists created crystals with some epsom salts, food coloring, and warm water. This activity inspired questions from the kids about what salt can do on different surfaces. So after we completed our jars of crystals, we grabbed the epsom salt, some ice cubes, and some regular table salt to experiment with. In a tub the kids poured the salts onto the ice shapes and felt the different textures it made. Both salts reacted and melted differently, which the kids found pretty interesting! A few days later, we tried art with salt. Using glue we traced out snowflakes then sprinkled them with epsom salt. We waited all day for them to dry before we could paint them. Since the actual activity calls for regular table salt, the epsoms reacted to the glue differently than expected and our snowflakes didn't turn out how we thought they would. We still enjoyed painting them, and are eager to try this again with table salt!
Here's how we spent last Friday during the inservice with Club 4/5 - having messy fun! Here, Jasbir has shown the kids how to make "snow". She gave them each a paper plate with some shaving cream. Add in baking soda, mix it up, then pour on the vinegar and watch the snow expand! As you can see, the bigger our mess got, the more fun we had.
, Later that afternoon, we made bath bombs from a recipe we found online. Using some epsom salts, lemon juice, baking soda, cornstarch and water we, mixed, mashed and molded some lemon/caramel scented bombs. When we had completed this bomb activity, the kids were asking if we could still mix and make stuff - so staff Alyssa grabbed the corn starch and water to show them how to make Ooblek. Is it solid? Is it liquid? It was both! Here's what they had to say when I asked them to describe what the Ooblek felt like: Slime has always been an interest with the kids at Dawn and Dusk! Instead of just making some, I offered the kids a variety of slime-based ingredients from three different recipes and told them to "figure it out" and explore. We had so much fun mixing and squishing everything together that even the mixes that didn't produce actual slime were oodles of fun to create!
Since the 4/5 fam at D&D are always environmentally aware, we wanted to do something with the leftover pumpkins and pumpkin guts that would serve the wildlife in our park. With the whole pumpkins, we encouraged the kids to do something they've always wanted to do: smash them up! With the guts from the pumpkins we brought out our Mud Kitchen Cart and an old bag of uncooked oats. The kids made little pumpkin & oatmeal muffins to leave in the forest for the bunnies, birds, and squirrels. And, just for fun, here's some pictures of a few costumes the kids wore on Friday, the 30th.
We just love inservice days because we get hours of uninterrupted play & learning! For October's inservice we had a Halloween Forest scavenger hunt, pumpkin carving, and creepy dioramas. Later, Chris from DNA Rhythms came and hosted a wonderful drumming session. Our favorite part was when he demonstrated the "Ocean Drum", and when we all followed his beat collectively, making some very cool music together.
Every Friday we like to wrap up our week by making a little music together. We've got a variety of instruments to offer like hand drums, bells, and tambourines. In these clips, the kids are playing along to the song "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars, In the other clip, one of our talented kids is playing a little melody by ear. At this rate, we'll be dropping the hottest new album of 2020 by Christmas! |
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