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Hello Rainy Day Mum readers, I’m so excited to be sharing our playtime here today. Cerys and I both have boys the same age and we’ve both noticed how they are just becoming interested in science-type investigations. I’ll admit, this has always been my weak spot up until now. But I believe that you become the kind of parent your child needs – and if that means raiding my kitchen to explore baking soda and vinegar reactions, putting a bag of flour and a jug of water in my curious 2.5yo hands or mixing up six different colours of water to explore absorption so be it!
Vin was introduced to the concept of absorption when we first discovered our waterbeads – I explained that as the tiny beads grew they were absorbing the water – but of course they take six hours to grow to full size, by which time my kiddo was bored of hearing me go on about the wonders of science (Cerys actually did a great post
here about observing the changes using a kitchen timer) and wanted to stick his hands in and chuck them all about!
I decided to take a different approach and set out a bunch of things to test absorption – kitchen towel, sponges, cotton wool balls, some hydrated waterbeads (about a week old and beginning to shrink), unhydrated waterbeads and some
Fake Snow (the polymer stuffing from a disposable nappy/diaper). Vin also wanted to test some milk bottle tops - I think it’s important to let kids test theories like this, even if us adults know they won’t work!
I coloured some water with food colouring so we could actually see the absorption process working – and we set off to test some theories
I strongly believe in child-led play and exploration – I think it is even more important when ‘investigating’ with kiddos. Everytime they ask ‘why’ I reply ‘what do you think?’ With older kids ask open-ended questions, let your own curiosity take over and don’t be afraid to get things ‘wrong’!
We’ve been looking at colour mixing during painting this week – so pouring the different coloured waters was a great way to reinforce this learning.
Adding the food colouring was a worthwhile step since it made the experiment so visual for the kids – we made purple snow and orange cotton wool…
and as with all toddler experiments eventually everything ended up in one tub, mushed and mixed together in that lovely shade of ‘preschool purple’ (the muddy brown colour left at the end of toddler painting sessions)
Hope you enjoyed our playtime! How do you explore and investigate with your kids?
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Charlotte is a twenty-something mum to Little Vin, early years childminder, playdough maker and believer in the power of playdates. Check out the fun over at Make, Do & Friend, on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest
Fabulous! I might use this to extend what we were doing with absorption recently. Love the pictures and there is some great advice in there for parents! Good one. Debs x
Debs – Learn with Play @ home recently posted..Colour, brilliant colour! Absorption and Patterns
What wonderful fun! I know my little guy would love to do this
stacy recently posted..Silly, yet serious
What a fun idea! Thank you for sharing!
Sheryl@Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds recently posted..Making Cornbread
this looks quite interesting! food coloring does make things easier to see, doesn’t it?
andie recently posted..tip-toe thru tuesday apr: 3
[...] Toddler Science – absorption » [...]
Fantastic, I love the idea of pre school purple!
Emma @sciencesparks recently posted..Introducing Materials
Color mixing usually ends with preschool purple for us, too! Great science learning for little ones!!
Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories recently posted..Exploring Density and Water Flow Outside
What a lovely post! Absorption, really is fascinating! My kids can’t get enough of waterbeads!
Thanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy & Alissa
maggy, red ted art recently posted..Sewing Seeds & The ONE Campaign