Prism Colors

The other morning I noticed on the floor a little spot in which the light from the window was making a rainbow.  Apparently our glass oil lamp was in just the right spot to act as a prism in front of the window.  I drew my daughter's attention to the colors magically appearing on the floor, and we started playing with it.  When we put our hands over it, the rainbow was on our hand!  When we stood between it and the window, it disappeared!  We sang our rainbow song (from Signing Time, My Favorite Things), pointing at each of the colors as we sang their names.  It was so much fun.  It gave me the idea to look for a less fragile prism - I obviously wasn't going to let my daughter play with the oil lamp.  I can put the oil lamp at strategic places, though, at certain times of the day when the light is just so (and when she isn't looking), and we can play with the fun rainbow. 

Water Drops

My daughter loves playing with water.  Her favorite water game is scoop-the-water, which I wrote about below.  But another game we enjoy is the water drop game.  I take a medicine dropper and fill it with water.  Then I squirt a couple drops of water onto different types of surfaces, and we see what happens to the water when it touches the surface.  When it touches non-porous surfaces, like on some of her hard toys, it leaves a circular drop!  When it touches porous surfaces, like certain fabrics, it disappears, leaving behind a wet circle!  If she were older, I'd ask her to guess, "What do you think will happen to the water when it touches this surface?" before doing a new surface, but she's not ready for that, yet.  We just have fun watching the water drops.  

 

Learning about Light

Today we played with the flashlight.  When we shine it through the hole in a box, you can see light in the box!  We followed the light from the flashlight all over the floor, walls, and ceiling.  We played a game in which we would shine the light at something and say, "Light!" and then put our fingers over the flashlight to block the light and say, "No light!"  We had fun seeing what types of materials the light would shine through when we put the flashlight right up against it - like, our clothes, our fingers, our feet, different toys.  And we saw that we could make a looooooooooooooong beam of light on the floor, or a small circle.  In the process she learned a lot about light through interacting with it.  It also worked her coordination as she struggled to get the light at just the right angle so that she could see it through her pockets, under her shirt, or through her toes.

Playing with Dirt

Yesterday we took outside into the front yard my daughter's sand shovel, pick, and bucket, along with a booster seat tray, some water in another bucket, a towel, and a cleaning sponge.  We dug up some dirt with the pick and shovel, and we dumped the dirt into the bucket.  When we had enough dirt, we poured the dirt from the bucket onto the tray and examined what we saw:  ants, rocks, dirt, etc.  When we were done, we poured some water onto the tray and I let her use the sponge to wipe it clean (she tried really hard, and she almost did it completely).  Then I finished the cleaning and we wiped it with a towel.  Then we repeated the process.  Throughout the activity, we also saw two beautiful butterflies, looked amazed at some leaves, and saw some other insects, as well.

My goals in doing this with her were (1) to give her a chance to observe, feel, and interact with real dirt (not just sand in a sandbox), (2) to give her a chance to practice her cleaning skills - there is something satisfying about actually seeing a surface change colors from dirty to clean when you wipe it, and wiping dirt definitely has that effect, (3) develop her pouring and scooping coordination (she's really into that right now - that is why I had her both scoop the dirt into the bucket and then pour the dirt from the bucket onto the tray) and (4) to grow in her understanding of the goodness of this world God has made.

Playing with Light and Shadows

We have a window in my daughter's playroom with blinds.  In the morning, when we do school, the sun is shining through the window and the blinds are tilted downward, there is a solid rectangle of light by the window on the floor.  Today we did shadow play with it.  I took one of her small stuffed animals, and I made the shadow of the animal "walk" across.  (She was like, "again! again!")  Then I contorted my fingers into the shape of a rabbit and then an elephant.  We had lots of fun playing with the shadows.  She also had fun observing how the light on the floor vanishes when I tilt the blinds way up, and then reappears when I tilt them back down.  There is so much that can be done with shadow play.  My daughter is too young to be able to do much with her fingers, but she can sit, she can walk, she can jump, she can lie down - and she can observe her shadow doing all of those things, too!   

Sand Bucket Pendulum

I took one of my daughter's sand buckets and attached about 2 ft of yarn to the bucket's handle.  We had so much fun swinging it back and forth.  I had gotten out a bunch of pasta pieces (Mezzi Rigatoni - they are in the bucket in the picture) and was going to put them on the string, one by one, as a counting game.  She had no interest in that, and it turned out to be too difficult for her, anyway (at least with that low of motivation).  Instead, she put all the pasta into the bucket, and we swung the bucket back and forth with the pasta in it.  We played a few little games with this:

1.  It turns out she is really into dumping, scooping, and pouring right now.  So we would dump the pasta out and then put it back in the bucket.  She saw another little cup, and she put the pasta first into the cup and then poured it into the bucket - it was great for working her motion precision and coordination, even if that wasn't what I initially set out to do. 

2.  I showed her that, when you smoothly swing the bucket all the way up and around - upside down and all - the pasta doesn't fall out!  

3.  We played "bang the bucket."  I attached another string of yarn to another bucket for myself, and I would swing that one while she was swinging hers, and we knocked them against each other.

4.  We also played "kick the bucket."  I'd hold it steady, and she'd kick it.  

So I didn't set out today to work on coordination and motor skills, but we had a ton of fun, and she really did end up learning the concept of the pendulum through extensively interacting with one.   We'll work on counting some other time.

Water Bobbing

Another one of our favorite water games is to get out the big kitchen pot, fill it with water, and then get a couple glass containers of different sizes that have lids.  I used a baby food jar and a Snapple bottle.  I put the tops on the containers while they are still full of air, and we try to push them down in the water -but they pop up!  Then we fill them with water, and we try to make them float - but they sink down!  She loves the water bobbing game.  It often ends up getting combined with the water scooping game below in one way or another, as she gets involved in forming the activity.