Next we talked about rain. We read "Frogs Bring Rain" and talked about all the fun rain brings. We worked on patterns by creating sequences of spring pictures. We also worked on shapes by matching felt raindrops with shapes drawn on them to the correct raindrop on sticky paper. It took a bit of work to be able to figure out which shapes to match (the square and rectangle were often mixed up), but the children did a fantastic job working through it! We discussed the water cycle, and learned about condensation, evaporation, and precipitation. To further explore the water cycle we did a science experiment! Everyone received a glass filled 3/4 full with water, then topped with shaving cream. Then they were given an eye dropper and some coloured water of their choice. Then they worked on fine motor skills by moving the coloured water to the glass with shaving cream and watched as the shaving cream became heavier with the coloured water until it started to rain below! Since the weather was so nice, we spent some time outside and "watered" each other with spray bottles! The kiddos had a lot of fun spraying each other and everything they could find.
Wind was our next exploration! We read the "Wind Blew" by Pat Hutchins, and talked about all the things that the wind picked up in the story. We talked about what other things the wind could move, and put our ideas to the test! Each child was given a cookie sheet with several items on it and a straw. First we discussed each item and wrote down whether we thought we could blow it or not. Then we tested our hypothesis' by using our straws to blow the objects! There was quite a bit of spit involved, but most of the items were able to move if blown hard enough. For our craft we did wind painting, by putting globs of paint on our papers, and used a straw to blow it around. Unfortunately, we couldn't blow hard enough to make the paint move too much, so they just ended up using a paintbrush or their fingers to move the paint around instead. We also created our very own kites! The children had a lot of fun helping me put together their kites once they decorated it, and watching it fly behind them as they ran around the room. For a gross motor activity we had wind races! We used the wooden blocks to set up a course in the play area, then everyone was given a pom pom and a straw to see if they could blow the pom pom between the buildings we had created! It sure was tough trying to control where the pom pom would go, but eventually we were able to get our pom poms through the obstacle course!
