NurtureStore » Science

The best kids ice play ideas

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:25:19 +0000

Ice play provides a rich sensory experience for children to explore. There are so many wonderful creative ways to enjoy ice play, including science, art and maths activities. Here are some of our favourite ice play ideas, from some of our favourite bloggers. Click through on each of the links to discover some fantastic ice play ideas you can enjoy with your children this winter.

Above: sail some ice cube boats :: make colourful ice sculptures :: paint on ice cream :: go excavating for frozen treasure ::

make a frozen rainbow you can eat :: investigate dry ice :: mini ice hockey game :: freeze some bubbles

add ice to your sensory table :: add coloured ice cubes to your bath :: add colour and salt to make ice art

go ice fishing :: create ice decorations :: explore melting :: paint with popsicles

What’s your favourite kind of ice play?

Electricity and playdough – who knew?

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 08:00:24 +0000

If you have got your copy of our free Let’s Play Dough ebook you might like to use one of the recipes to try this experiment we found via Brick by Brick – who knew playdough could conduct electricity?!

On our summer wish list: make a water wall using the ideas collected over on let the children play.

These kid created comics from kinderpendent are a fun way to keep kids writing all summer long.

And how much mess can you tolerate? Join artist Pia Walker and me as we chat about encouraging creativity in children.

Have a great weekend!

Growing seeds experiment

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:27:55 +0000

Another idea for extending gardening with children today, with a ‘growing seeds experiment’. The children have planted lots of seeds in our garden and seen plants growing, but so much of the action takes place beneath the soil that we decided we’d take a closer look at germination and see what seeds really look like when they start to grow. Here’s how we conducted our garden investigation.

1. We used bean and pea seeds for our experiment. They’re big sized seeds which makes them easy to handle, and the different shapes make them an interesting contrast. They germinate quickly too, giving the children something interesting to see without having to wait too long.

2. We filled a glass with cotton wool to act as our ‘soil’ and dampened the cotton wool with water. Then we popped our seeds inside, placing them at the edge of the glass so we could get a good view of them as they began to grow.

3. The children decided what they would like to measure and came up with three things: how long it would take some something to start growing, how long before there was a leaf and how long before there was a flower. You can ask the children to guess the answers to each question. This also gives the opportunity to add in some maths to your seed growing experiment, with younger children able to count along a number line to record each day, and older ones recording the results in different styles of tables and graphs. Having two different types of seeds in the experiment lets you compare results.

4. When the seeds begin to grow you can take photos and draw pictures of what you see and there’s lots of opportunity for discussion too. Do the children know the names for the different parts of the plant? Why does the seed need roots and leaves? How does it know to put the root at the bottom and the leaf at the top? What happens if you turn a seed upside down when the root has just begun to grow?

5. We’re recording all our observations in our garden journal, and once the first leaves have appeared we’ll be planting the seeds in some soil so they can get the nutrients they need to grow into health plants.

happily shared with science Sunday and for the kids Friday and the learning laboratory and math monday and tot school

Kitchen role play ideas

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:57:25 +0000

We’re enjoying the warm weather this week and the opportunity to play outside in the sunshine. As well as playing in their rock pool, the children have been cooking up sand pies and pebble cakes in their play kitchen. Do you have an outdoor cooking area for your kids?

As you can see, ours was improvised by the girls from a deckchair and items borrowed from our indoor home corner – a great reminder that you can encourage lots of creative play outdoors just by relocating resources from one area to another. Do you like the fire they made to heat their oven? Add in few pots and pans and they were ready to get cooking.

Play kitchens give children the opportunity to take on different roles, trying out the skills they see the adults in the family using. There’s lots of measuring and counting to be done and plenty to chat about as they prepare their meals. Providing sand, water or mud offers sensory play and science exploring, as the children combine wet and dry materials and observe how the textures change. Physical skills develop as they try out utensils and spoon and pour their ingredients. But even better than all of this, outdoor play kitchens are fun!

For more inspiring outdoor play kitchen ideas have a look at Worms Eye-View and let the children play. The Frugal Family Fun Blog has a diy travel kitchen, which you could take with you wherever you play – I’d like one made in a wipe-able oilcloth fabric which we could take with us to the beach. And Childhood 101 has a tutorial for transforming a cardboard box into a stove.

Do your children enjoy pretend cooking?

happily shared with abc and 123 and tot Tuesday and we play and made by little hands and tot school and preschool corner and for the kids Friday and it’s playtime

How to make a rock pool

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:05:45 +0000

After a trip to the beach we returned with a bucket full of treasures and decided to make a rock pool in the garden for lots more beach play at home. You can see in the pictures some of the things we collected, and a few we already had at home: pebbles and shells, sand and seaweed and two mermaid’s purses (much to B’s delight).

The girls gave the treasures a clean and then settled them into a new home in a tub of water. They made some fish from scrunched up tinfoil and then were ready to play. Adding in some tea-strainer fishing nets was perfect.

Books about seasides and mermaids

My girls love stories about the sea. Here are two favourites which we’re reading tonight – the perfect bedtime stories after a trip to the beach.

Shirley Hughes books are favourites in our house and The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook is L’s favourite of them all. It’s a collection of short stories and poems about outdoor play and adventures. One tells the story of Bonting, Alfie’s treasured pebble who is lost (and later happily found) on a family outing to the beach. The illustrations capture the essence of a UK beach.

Can You Catch a Mermaid by Jane Ray is a wonderful story set by the sea. It’s a moving tale of a lonely little girl and a very hard decision she has to make. It’s all about friendship and features Jane Ray’s beautiful illustrations. B has a real love of mermaids so this is her top pick, and I like it because it can be read on different levels: it has a happy ending and also leaves you thinking about unanswered questions long after you’ve finished reading.

happily shared with gardening with kids and made by little hands and inspire me Monday and tot school and science Sunday and link and learn and craft schooling Sundayand preschool corner and the resource centre and it’s playtime and upcycled awesome and works for me Wednesday and tot tuesday and we play and abc and 123