All in a Day's Play

I thought I would give you an opportunity to peer into a small part of the day during my classroom time. You see, I "play" for a living. Each and every day, I play with toys (and let's clarify this for those of you might think differently - CHILDREN'S toys).

Yesterday we finished a project that had been started the day before. We had placed little Halloween confetti objects into a one liter container (by the way, our school is #1 in recycling in the state and #2 in the nation - this is only a small part of our effort to recycle- we are working on creating a lifelong skill of recycling from a very young age). Placing these objects into the bottle is a wonderful task for fine motor skills for the little hands that need this skill.

Today was messier - and the reason it was postponed was I had left the funnel at home and could not find one in the school (the lunchroom's funnel was more industrial and BIGGER).

Our supplies included:

large bucket/container

a funnel

water

one liter bottles with Halloween confetti

the lid to the bottle

red and yellow food coloring

After filling up the container of water, and this is wear it gets WET, the child placed their smaller container in the water to get some water to pour into the funnel (this is where the teacher comes in and helps - she places some water into it the bottle to weight it and stabilize it). Then the pouring begins and into the funnel the water goes (most of it anyway). Down into the bottle it goes and allows the confetti to start moving around in the liquid.




Here comes the fun part - and I had to do this part. Little hands sometimes can't handle this and go a little overboard and since this was borrowed food coloring, I was not going to let it go to waste.

One drop of red and 2 drops of yellow start to swirl in the water. Oh what fun it is to watch it start to mix! (Science in action here)

Oh yes, we had to place the lid on and twist it on so the water wouldn't spill - another good fine motor skill!

And who can resist.....but to shake it afterwards....




Finished...

All in a day's work play.