Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Seeds


There are three ways that seeds travel: air, water, and animals. Seeds that travel through the air are lots of fun to play with and this time of year is a great opportunity to check out seeds together. We usually think of seeds in the spring when we plant our gardens, but trees and many wildflowers make large, easy to find seeds right now!

As the trees stop making food and prepare for the winter, acorns and helicopters like those above will come down along with the colorful leaves. Try dropping some maple helicopters - do they spin better with one or two seeds? Here's one you can make at home. You can try different types of paper or adding more paper clips to make it spin better.

At the library on Tuesday, we dropped them from the balcony much to the delight not just of the participants, but of the library patrons as well. Then we constructed our own seeds using recycled materials. We made seeds that floated on air like dandelions, seeds that had hooks like burs and even one that was supposed to float like a boat.

Science Words: Magnify, Grow, Outside, Inside, Float, Similar, Different

Here are some ideas for you to try at home.

Go on a Seed Walk – put an old pair of socks on over your shoes or put on bracelets of tape with the sticky side out. Take a walk thru a meadow or meadow-like area. What seeds attached themselves to you?

Plant a seed together. You can plant some Indian Corn seeds or bean seeds on damp paper towels. This is a fun way to watch a plant grow. What different parts of a plant to you observe? You can also sprout birdseed on a sponge. Sprinkle birdseed on a sponge in a small container. Keep the sponge moist and the seeds will continue to grow.

Make a seed mosaic. Grab some glue and a few beans, rice, grains, and even pasta to make a picture with the seeds. What is different about the seeds? What is similar?

Seeds for dinner? What seeds do you eat? Can you make a meal of them? Some ideas:
Corn is a seed – corn bread, Johnny cakes, polenta
Most nuts are seeds – cashew butter, walnuts, sunflowers
Grains are seeds – wheat, barley, oats

~Thanks to birds eye view at flicker for the great photo!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Corny Fun

Don't let the word science hold you back. While you are worried about science, your preschooler is already discovering, making observations about the world, and collecting information about how everything works. Join them in their discoveries and make a few of your own.

As fall harvests come in, we are seeing an abundance of corn - for eating and decorating. This is a perfect opportunity to encourage your child to explore with all their senses with a safe and easy to find subject: Corn! If you can find corn stalks with the corn still attached, this makes for a really interesting and noisy exploration of the parts of a plant. The silk on the top of corn is the flower - collecting the pollen from the wind and transporting it to the embryos or corn kernels (seeds).

Science Words: More, Less, Magnify, Grow, Outside, Inside, Float, Similar, Different

Pop Corn - measure out an amount of unpopped corn together. Make a prediction about how big the pop corn will be after it is popped. For example, if you start with a half of cup of unpopped corn, how many cups will you have after it has popped? What made the corn pop? (The moisture in the kernel is heated up and expands - popping the outer kernel when it gets too big to be held in.)

Go on a Seed Walk – put an old pair of socks on over your shoes or put on bracelets of tape with the sticky side out. Take a walk thru a meadow or meadow-like area. What seeds attached themselves to you?

Plant a seed together. You can plant some Indian Corn seeds or bean seeds on damp paper towels. This is a fun way to watch a plant grow. What different parts of a plant to you observe?

Make a seed mosaic. Grab some glue and a few beans, rice, grains, and even pasta to make a picture with the seeds. What is different about the seeds? What is similar? This will help kids improve their fine motor skills and sharpen their observation skills.

Corn comparison - Cut in half both a kernel of canned corn and a kernel of Indian corn (you many need to soak it first) and add a kernel of popped pop corn to the pile. Grab a magnifying glass and compare the structure of both kernels. Can you draw what you see? Using a magnifying glass can be tricky - sometimes starting with a bug box can help.

If you want a diagram of the corn kernel - check here: http://bioweb.sungrant.org/NR/rdonlyres/C8D9EEEF-C88E-4FE1-88B5-AA5A59B9CDC1/0/DiagramofCornKernelcopy.gif. The actual names of all the parts is not important but this shows the structure very nicely.

Have a corny dinner. What foods can you eat that come from corn? Polenta, corn bread, Johnny cakes, corn chowder, and more can be made into a corny meal. Try Indian pudding for dessert!

If you have a moment, share what activies you try and how they worked out!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Color

Let's face it, we are visual creatures. We love the shape, shadows and color of objects. Our eyes are build for color vision and given all the colors we wear, paint our houses, choose in our cars, and plant in our flower beds, we love color a lot.


Kids love color and it is an easy way to explore some pretty darn cool science with your favorite preschooler. At the Messy Fingers program at the library we put food coloring into milk (above) then added one drop of soap. The colors mixed and mingled creating a new design each time we looked.

We also used bath color tablets to make primary colors. We used clear egg cartons on white paper to see them nicely and droppers to mix two primary colors at a time to form secondary colors. To record our observations, we put drops of primary colors on to coffee filters and watched where they merged into ... none other than our secondary colors (orange, purple, and green).




Here are some ways to explore color at home.

Eat a rainbow – you can talk about how we should eat all the colors of the rainbow each day to be healthy. What are some of the colors you all like to eat? Can you make a rainbow meal with something from each color?

Jello Rainbow – you can make a rainbow snack with layers of jello. You can get just the primary colors and mix them, but remember that you have to let each layer fully set before adding the next one.

Rainbow Streamer – cut the center out of a paper plate. Add construction paper streamers off of one side in the colors of the rainbow. You can staple or glue them on. Hold it like a tambourine or turn it into a windsock by putting a string thru the hole and hanging it up.

Color Scavenger Hunt – take crayons or small pieces of paper on your next walk. See if you can find something that matches each color. Are primary colors easier to find?

Books:
Mouse Paint by Sue Walsh
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert