I love a theme. Almost any theme.
It just helps me to personally be more organized. To focus and narrow down what is truly important, which is having healthy, happy and motivated tiny thinkers. So I really want to emphasize the method to my madness, instead of focusing on my super cute tiny thinkers and their cute activity try to really dig deep and look for the connection. Don’t worry, I’ll outline the connection for you.
We started our Valentines theme off pretty amazingly. We combined two STEM experiments into one and didn’t make a mess of the entire house in the process. I found this sensible sensory experiment using just baking soda, vinegar, food coloring and glitter–I substituted sprinkles, there is enough glitter embedded in our carpet for eternity I’m sure. You can check out the original post here.
Our version went a little like this:
Step #1: Present children with prepared materials and make them wait to touch so you can capture it for all of eternity (& this post.)
Learning:
- The wonderful life skill of patience.
Step #2: Let them decorate the baking soda in the heart with as much food coloring and sprinkles as they reasonably wish.
Learning:
- Fine motor skills by using both the dropper and the syringe
- Using their imagination and boosting their creativity by decorating
- Color Recognition
- Hand Eye Coordination
Step #3: Help them to fill a small dropper with vinegar and squeeze some SLOWLY on top of the decorated baking soda heart. Ask them a few questions like:
- Wow, did you hear that fizzy noise?
- Did you see yours change color?
- Does it smell like anything?(other than awful?)*
*I’m a tad biased and do not like the smell of vinegar.
Learning:
- Hand Eye Coordination
- Fine motor skills
- Accessing Senses: Hearing, Sight and Smell
- Patience, yet again
Step #4: Let them use their 5 senses to explore. (I advise not tasting any of it, but we all know MG2 took a small taste, not only is he “the Hammer” he is also “the Billy Goat.”)
Learning:
- Creativity
- Ingenuity
- Patience
- Focus
- Hand Eye Coordination
- Fine Motor Skills
- Color Recognition
- Sensory Recognition
The list goes on and on!
To wrap up our Valentines theme, we used funnels and ice cream scoopers to bottle up their creations for a magic “Love Potion” by simply using the now emptied sprinkle containers. In MG1’s you can really see the separation of the baking soda and the vinegar, MG2 went a tad heavier on the sprinkles so the separation isn’t quite as visible.
Another Mama made her own version of “Love Potion,” using the same ingredients and Kool-Aid instead of food coloring. You can see her version here.
By adding a themed activity we not only get to explore new fun things but I have a standard focal point on what skills they’re getting to actually focusing on. The Fizzy Hearts were also a bonus because of the easy clean up, just make sure to use a baking sheet or pizza pan underneath and it rinses clean!
MG1 and I also did a little imaginary play with shapes. She loves being a doctor and fixing everything and anyone, so after today she is one step closer to her “Doctorate of Shape Recognition.”
Anyway, I picked up these adorable shape puzzle pairs in the Target $1 Spot last year and we love them, but they’ve been used weekly for months! So today I asked MG1 to come up with a game with them. Of course she chose Doctor.
We just separated each pair and jumbled them all around on the table, then Dr. MG1 basically just matched each pair focusing on the shapes’ NAME (ex: “Where’s Mr. Circle’s half? Miss Star’s?). We made sure each “patient” had it’s other half and we pretended to put a band-aid on them. She loved it, I loved it. Winner, winner, who’s cooking dinner? Oh wait, I am.
The rest of the day went something like this.
We worked on a few pages from her new workbook I picked up at Aldi yesterday (for $3.99).
We also dabbled in various apps for MG2, some of the apps we used were from Tiny Hands. We love all their FREE versions! Just letting him play for a few minutes every other day has improved his hand eye coordination greatly, as well as helping him to learn his colors and develop is language skills. MG1 asked to write in her erasable alphabet book, which was also purchased from target. You can find them just about anywhere. We love the Dollar Tree ones too. Then we went to our library and picked out new books and played the rest of the day.
It was a pretty simple day, I know it may seem overwhelming if you’re starting out but trust me if you put just a tiny bit of thought in to it and have your materials set up and ready to go when your kiddos are ready you’d be surprised how easy it actually is.
If you and your little ones try out making a “Love Potion”♥ be sure to share it so we can see how theirs turn out too! ♥
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”- Proverbs 3:5
Go get fizzy with it!
Goof Troop Chronicles 