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Keeping the chill away with science and math...

Melanie Patric

It was below zero this morning, so it came as a sort of no-brainer that we were going to take a break from all the snow play and enjoy some indoor activities. To begin, we did our regular calendar, weather, and circle time. When we looked out the window to see what the weather was, we saw some very chilly looking little birds at the feeder. We decided to put out some warm water for them and some extra fancy birdseed. The birds seemed thankful!

After that, we warmed up to the morning with some yoga moves. We did a simple sun salutation.

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare children doing yoga

The kids really liked trying to do downward dog!

We moved right along to a sensory activity for everyone. I put three different types of Valentine's candy into a variety of opaque containers, then put a foil cover with a smelling hole over the top. Each of the children had the chance to sniff through the hole and take a guess at what was inside.

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare children doing a sensory activity

eFirst, I passed around some cinnamon candy, and all the older children guessed it was "spicy" or "cinnamon." The babies smiled when they sniffed!

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare children doing a sensory activity
Blue Sky Daycare home daycare children doing a sensory activity

The next container filled with conversation hearts proved a bit trickier to guess- the children thought it might contain "bubble gum," so they were surprised to see the little hearts inside.

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare children doing a sensory activity

I passed around a container with chocolate candy last, and all of the older children immediately guessed there was chocolate inside. They have good sniffers!

Next, we did a sorting activity with the conversation hearts. I presented the children with an egg carton that had colored spots that matched up with the colors of the various conversation hearts.

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity

1sw3eI asked them to take turns matching hearts to the the colored spots, and they were very much up to the task. We even helped the littles drop in a few hearts!

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity

When everyone had a turn sorting, we took out all the candies color by color and put them in a line to count them. We talked about which color had the most candies and which had the least... and then we tried some!

Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity
Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity
Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity
Blue Sky Daycare home daycare child doing a sorting activity

Lastly, we made a hypothesis about whether the conversation hearts would melt in water, and if we thought hot, warm, or cold water would dissolve them best.

Blue Sky Daycare children doing an experiment about dissolving
Blue Sky Daycare children doing an experiment about dissolving

I assisted the children in pouring the water into jars (I made sure the hot water wasn't too hot!), and then they each dropped in two hearts.

Blue Sky Daycare children doing an experiment about dissolving

I brought in a container filled with vinegar and we added hearts to that container as well. We observed the hearts. We noticed that not much happened immediately, but after a while, we saw that there was color from the hearts in the water.

Blue Sky Daycare children doing an experiment about dissolving

We kept checking back and we decided that there really wasn't much of a difference between the warm and hot water but that the cold water did not dissolve the hearts as quickly as the warmer water. Interestingly, we observed that the vinegar did not do a very good job of dissolving the hearts.

By the time all the experiments were done, it was time for lunch, and everyone got to have a little piece of Valentine's candy as "dessert."

When the children woke up, we checked out the results of our dissolving experiment and we all decided that the warm water dissolved the conversation hearts the best, while vinegar seemed to have dissolved them the least.

In the afternoon, we alternated between reading a book of fun facts about the world and reading Happy Valentine's Day, Little Critter again.

What a "sweet" day! See you tomorrow!

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