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SCIENCE FUN!!



 SCIENCE FUN!!

An upcoming event at school is the Science Week…our pre-schoolers shall be head over heels in science experiments during the five day fest.
Here are a few activities out of my treasure chest.. Have been reading and reading, collecting ideas after ideas… for all you teachers out there preparing for this fest.
Ideas for Water- Water Everywhere.
·         Model drinking water.Children learn from our actions.So Teach!
·         Discuss how drinking water makes the brain work better.
·         Provide drinking cups to the children .Encourage them to decorate the same as creatively as possible.Let them use these cups!!
·         Play this game- provide straws and 2 cups filled with water.Encourage to drink till one is completely empty and the other half full.Its an excellent activity to teach concentration on tasks at hand as well as breathing techniques.
·         Sorting games can be played with coloured ice cubes.Provide tongs and let them sort colour wise.Watching the cubes melt into colourful water can be a real joy!
·         Have a demonstration on What Happens When?
Get 2 children to drink water from a long straw and a short straw( long straw can be prepared by joining two or more straws.
·         Give a bag full of ice slab.Provide with a Hard object to break/crush this ice.Talk about Force!! Required to crush the ice.


A few books that can add colour to your reading shelf-


Otto’s Rainy Day by Natasha Yim & Pamela R Levy
Otto loves running through mud puddles and catching raindrops on his tongue, but when he puts on his slicker and red boots one rainy day, his mother is too busy to take him outside. The disappointed boy uses his imagination and becomes a fireman as he slides down the banister, a monkey in the jungle as he climbs up the green curtains, and a trampoline artist on the living room sofa. Each game ends with a crash and a boom, and his mother's patience becomes increasingly short. Otto has the perfect solution to make it all up to her-"A great big chocolate cake." That, of course, makes the biggest mess of all, resulting in more reprimands and a tearful child. Finally, Otto's mom decides that playing outside in the rain is much more fun-and more important-than work. The realistic water color drawings are particularly effective in depicting the youngster's imaginings, especially the jubilant monkey sporting Otto's yellow-and-white striped socks on his apelike feet.
  

The Waters Journey by Eleanor Schmid
Explains the water cycle from precipitation through a stream into a river, a lake, and on to the ocean and back into the atmosphere by evaporation to repeat the cycle.


Using Kindergarten worksheets!!!

Is an art preparing them even a bigger art? Here are a few tips that shall help you get the best out of them.

1. Use worksheets appropriate to a child's level. Give an easy worksheet for each concept, immediately after you teach that concept.
2. If a child finds any activity too tough, give him an easier one. It is important that the child doesn't get frustrated. Keep in mind that different children have greatly varying levels of comprehension and pace of learning.
3. Worksheets are best when they are well constructed with appropriate clip art/ pictures related to the topic being taught. Ensure that u cover all the points that you have taught. Reinforce when you work at the worksheet together.
4. Try to supplement each worksheet with a practical, real-life activity. For example after a worksheet on counting, you can ask the child to pick out 3 bananas and 2 apples from many.
5. Remember, a child is learning many new things at once. A child of this age has an amazing capacity to learn many new things fast. However, he can also forget them equally fast. Doing many interesting worksheets with cartoons etc would be fun for him and would help continually re-in force what is learn.
6.  Give positive feedback and encourage the child. Reinforces / encouragement stampers are a great way to ensuring and sustaining interest.
Remember the Child's fine motor skills are just developing. Do not have him write until he is fully comfortable with holding a pencil. Do not expect or try for perfection. Spend sufficient time and continually re-in force the learning in day-to-day situations. Most importantly, it should be fun for the teacher and the taught!


 A Fruity Lesson Plan!!!

Teaching preschoolers is a challenging, yet rewarding, experience. They are full of energy, so you must find methods of educating them that keep their attention. Interactive teaching and using action-based activities are the best methods for teaching preschoolers. Preschool children work best in smaller groups and on individual levels, and they must be actively engaged in whatever they are trying to learn.
Today I share a few lesson plan tips on teaching children all about FRUITS.

 Instructions
Things You'll Need
  • Fresh or dried fruit
  • Sandwich bags
  • Pictures of fruit
  • Picture books about fruit
1.  As a class teacher Offer healthy fruit choices to your students during snack time. Prepare individual sandwich bags with a variety of fruits. If you use fresh fruit, use only fruit that is easy to eat without much mess, such as grapes. You may also want to use dried fruit, such as banana chips and raisins. Ask the children to name the fruit in the bags before they eat the fruit. (These can be called for from home!!! Each student van carry any one predecided fruit that day to school)


2.  Place a tray with all the fruits in on your table .Let the children decide their favorite fruit and then draw it.  At the end of the week invite parents and other relatives to a special showcasing of the pictures.

3.  Use the child's senses of taste and smell. Blindfold one of the children and gather the others around. Have everyone be quiet for a minute, and give the blindfolded child a piece of fruit. Ask him or her how the piece of fruit smells and tastes, and then ask the child to guess what the fruit is.

4.  Create a fruit-themed alphabet chart. Ask them to name a fruit for each letter of the alphabet -- A is for apple and B is for banana, for example. Let the children choose what fruits the other letters stand for. Display on the class bulletin board.


5.  Count the seeds inside a specific fruit!!!!. Peel an orange and count the number of seeds within that orange. Next, slice an apple in half and count the number of seeds within that apple. Repeat with any other fruit that you want. This activity will teach all about the fruit and basic number counting.


6.  Read a picture book to your preschool children that involve fruit as its main subject. Ask the school librarian for recommendations. For example, "Blueberries for Sal" by Robert McCloskey is a Caldecott Honor awarded picture book that's perfect for teaching children about blueberries.

Environment Day

You will need

a round balloon
newspaper
1 cup flour
1 cup cold water
4 cups boiling water
pencil
green and blue paint
paint brushes
atlas or globe

Method

1. In a large pot mix the flour and cold water until the mixture is thin and runny.

2. Stir in the boiling water and allow the mixture to simmer on the stove briefly and then set it aside to cool.

3. Tear the newspaper into long strips about as wide as a ruler.

4. Blow up the balloon and knot it tightly.


Cover the balloon and Paint the land and the seas

5. When the flour glue has cooled adequately, carefully dip each strip of newspaper into it, wipe off the excess glue and wrap it around the balloon.

6. Cover the entire balloon with strips of paper and then place it in a safe place to dry overnight (or for about 8 hours). We stood ours in a plastic bowl.

7. Cover the balloon with two more layers of paper strips, allowing each layer to dry inbetween.

8. When the third layer has dried, using an atlas or globe as a guide, draw the continents on your globe with a pencil.

9. Place some newspaper on your worktop and paint the land and the seas. Use one color at a time.

Variation

While doing this project you could do as we did and also make a papier maché piggy bank.

1.After covering your balloon with one layer of paper strips, add feet, ears and a nose cut from a cardboard egg carton and secure them with masking tape.
2. Complete the last two layers.
3. Paint your piggy bank pink.
4. Add a curly tail and cut a slit in the top for coins.