chromatography for kids

We played color mixing game a long before and here is our color separation experiment.  Chromatography is a process of separating color pigments and it will help us to show how primary colors are mixed together to make the secondary colors.

                        The experiment is very simple. Take a filter paper and draw something in the middle using sketch pens or non permanent markers.  Put few drops of water in the middle and wait for some time.  When the water moves in the filter paper due to capillary action, it separates the color pigments.  Black and brown colors are the best for this experiment.  You can repeat the experiment with different colors and different brands of sketches.

Our Literacy Centre

Blending Letters

My little one learnt her phonics easily.  But, she suffered a little while blending the sounds to form a word.  Then, I found this ‘magic words’ trick to blend sounds. I wrote words using wax in white papers and the words cannot be seen initially.  Then I heated the papers against candle light one letter at a time.  Whenever the letter appears, my little one will tell the sound and continue blending them as the letters appear one by one. Instead of showing a full word, this trick really did a magic.

Reading practice is one of our daily routine and it will not continue for more than ten minutes.   But, those ten minutes will be in a way my little one likes it.  Moreover, finding ways to encourage phonics learning without worksheets is really challenging that too in a minimum budget.

Picture matching

It is very simple to play.  I cut pictures from old books; wrote words in a paper. I gave the paper and a bowlful of pictures to my little one.  She has to read the word, found the picture from the bowl and paste it under the word.

Missing letter puzzle:

Here is our missing letter- find the route puzzle.  My little one has to identify the correct way for the girl to reach her home.  At each point she has to identify the missing letter and choose the path accordingly.

Quill pen for writing practice

I asked her to write few words to identify her spelling skill. We used a quill pen for her writing practice. She took a pigeon’s feather from our feather collection and dipped it in the ink to write words.

Our First Geography Lesson - Continents in a Tray

We planned to start our Geography lessons in a Montessori sensible way and I created this continents tray as a first step.  To show my little one what are continents, I filled a tray with blue water to represent the oceans and made 7 sand spots to represent the continents.

Then we placed the map of  each continent.  

We also sang the continentsong.

My little one and her friend tried to put the continents map in the correct places. Though they could not do it perfectly, they enjoyed it.  They identified Asia by spotting India, identified Australia and Antarctica by the unique shapes.  My little one identified Africa by spotting Madagascar -‘This is ‘penguins of Madagascar’(Her favorite cartoon serial.)  See Africa and Madagascar looks like India and Srilanka’

Then, they started making hurricanes and started their sensory play.

  

Nature walk - Nature's architects

We had a great week and I wanted to share some of our interesting findings during our nature walk.  We found a piece of bee hive.  We investigated the perfect hexagon shapes in the bee hive. It’s really amazing how these small bees built their house using beeswax and how they built theses perfect hexagon shapes. 

I drew the beehive using rangoli powder and my little one’s attempt to draw a hexagon ends in a oval shape.

Another attempt

Here are the second tiny architects.  Found these busy weaver ants during our nature walk  Look at their nests. How beautifully they connected the leaves using saliva and built their houses.

Bayaa weavers are common in our farm land.

  But, I have been looking for a weaver bird’s nest. When I visited my professor at Nit, Trichy, his daughter showed me this weaver’s nest in their backyard. My professor’s wife is maintaining a great backyard and I am lucky to see this weaver’s nest there.  I clicked this for my little one.

We found these big caterpillars in our backyard.  There are so many.  We are waiting to see the pupae.

Found this guava seed in our nature walk.  Look. Isn't it look like a brain?  Taken it for our nature box.

 You can view all our nature study posts here

Teaching place values - tens and ones - Shopping game extended

We extended our shopping game to learn place values. This time I used only ten rupees and one rupee coins in our game (I introduced only the meaning of tens and ones).

Initially, when I asked my little one to pay Rs.12/- she put a one rupee coin and a 2 rupees coin side by side and said , “here is the money.”   I expected this and hence, I gave her only ten rupee notes and one rupee coins.  

Here are some pictures from our shopping game.

Cardboard Roll dolls

I have seen many toilet paper roll dolls in internet and was very much inspired by those projects.  So, I too wanted to do some recycled crafts and we made some cardboard dolls this week. These are really easy and fun to make.  

I used a base cardboard tube of thread rolls.Here is a step by step tutorial

Here is our cardboard tube Rapunzel

Our Math Story Board

In kindergarten, a child has to learn beyond counting and writing numbers and I want our math activities to be real and meaningful.  I already posted some of our math activities like egg counting, simple additionand subtraction with toys … 

In one fine evening, when we were in the terrace observing the babblers, I said, “They are always seen in groups of 6 to ten. That’s why it is also called as seven sisters"

My little one started counting it.  I said, “Actually there were 8 and 3 flew away”.  She immediately replied, “Then, there would be only 5.” I was surprised to hear it.   Because, my little one is very good in counting, shapes recognition and comparisons.  But she never shows interest in addition and subtraction.  In fact, if I ask her to add two numbers or if I give her some worksheet on addition/subtraction, her reply would be like, “No, I don’t like this sort of math.”   So I thought of trying a little later.  But, now I understood, she loves ‘real and meaningful’ math, not worksheets.

I started including science quizzes and simple math concepts in my own stories. I pinned the idea of creating a story board from carrotsareorange a long before.  I created our math story board yesterday.  I cut pictures from old textbooks, comics and magazines and pasted the pictures in a chart paper to create various scenes.   Here comes our story.

This is our little heroin Tinu. Her mom asked her to visit her grandparents.  Her mom asked her to pluck some vegetables and flowers from their vegetable garden and give it to her grandparents.  

On her way, Tinu stood some time near the pond, counted the ducks, fishes and the frog

(I asked my little one some questions like “5 ducks standing and 1 swimming. Totally how many ducks are there?

How many frogs would be there, if the eagle eats one frog?

if the crane eats two fishes, how many fishes would be there?”)

Then, she went to their vegetable garden.  In the entrance, there stood a big tree asked her to identify its name from the seed. Once she answered,  she was allowed inside. 

She compared tomato and brinjal plants which has more number of vegetables.  She plucked 3 from each plant (addition). 

Then, she counted the honey bees flying around the hibiscus plant.  She plucked 4 flowers (Subtraction to find the flowers in the plant).

  She saw one more brinjal plant and plucked two more brinjals (I asked her the total number of   brinjals in her hand).  While returning, she saw 4 parrots sitting in the tree.  3 more parrots came and sat. The tree asked her to tell the total number of parrots sitting in the branch.  She would be allowed  to leave the garden only if she answers . She added them up and replied 7.

On her way to her grandparents’ house, She compared a coconut tree and a papaya tree and said which one is taller.  Then she reached her grandparents’.  

This is my first submission for the challenge 'Something every week - a 90 day homeschoolers challenge"