Wednesday, May 13, 2009

PreKin: Sid the Science Kid fascination continues

This is a repost of an old post originally published on my wordpress blog. The xml files would not transfer to blogger so I will c&p here.

Originally posted May 12th.


She still has a strong interest in Sid the Science Kid on PBS weekday mornings. After a recent episode about our lungs she wanted to try a couple of the investigations.
Here she is blowing bubbles in a bubble/water solution with a straw. This activity was a big hit trying to blow bubbles over the top of the little bowl.

[caption id="attachment_128" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Blowing bubbles to demonstrate how we blow air out of our lungs. "]Blowing bubbles to demonstrate how we blow air out of our lungs. [/caption]



Then she attempted to blow up a balloon. (They warn you not to do this in the investigation, but I wasn't worried about choking with her while I was supervising. Now, I wouldn't let my 2y4m old try it! There was a chance he would suck in instead of blowing out.) I had to help since even with stretching of the rubber, she couldn't quite get enough air power to blow it up herself. Quite a bit of excitement occurred when I showed her and little brother how to let go of a blown-up balloon and it zooms across the room! We also tied them off and batted them around dancing to music later in the day.

[caption id="attachment_129" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Trying to blow up a balloon."]Trying to blow up a balloon.[/caption]

We also had a discussion about foot size when I was ordering some new shoes for the kids and decided to use the ruler from her science tray to measure her foot length and the foot length of the other 3 children and compare sizes.

preschool activities 011

We ordered this book and received it this week and she LOVES it. She wants us to read pages to her a couple times per day . There are other great books about the human body for younger children, but I knew she was going to crave more information so I went for the encyclopedia format.

[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Our new book. "]Our new book. [/caption]

Some blog readers might wonder why I do so few reading/language activities with her. She is actually already quite a reader with quite flawless reading at the early second grade level. So, satisfying her right now seems to be providing some new books as needed at the appropriate reading level and also working on vocabulary. I don't do anything too formal with her on the vocabulary or sight words. She seems to have a natural drive toward the very things for which I would offer instruction so I haven't felt the need to get too formal with her. As far as vocabulary, she naturally picks up more words every day from just listening in her world. I would like to do more writing activities with her and have some ideas in my head about that. She only recently has expressed interest in writing and she tends to resist it, so writing activities that will be of high interest to her are a must.

So, in the area of Language Arts, I pulled out 4 new books for her.

[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="4 new reading books"]4 new reading books[/caption]

She also helped to make the Melody Maker described here for a music class assignment this week. The assignment was to make a bell of some kind at home. I felt this might qualify with its metal on metal timbre. This is quite enjoyable. If you want to make it yourself, I must warn you that the supplies cost us around $15 so be prepared for that. We will hang it out on in our musical garden (or banging wall).

[caption id="attachment_121" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Taking the Melody Maker to music class."]Taking the Melody Maker to music class.[/caption]

Next up: Planting seeds and I still want to do a charting activity with her. Also, writing of some kind.

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