This week’s #playfulpreschool theme is all about The Earth, both of my kids are fascinated by what goes on underneath the surface of the earth and after our recent trip to the Natural History Museum they are even more fascinated after seeing the bugs as well as exploring the areas about volcanoes and Earth Quakes. Last year as part of the Virtual Book Club for Kids we explored what worms do creating a wormery that we could observe on the window sill.
We’ve built another wormery and this time I’ve been getting T my preschooler to journal what happens with a sneak peek at the worms each day over a week.
Materials
Plastic Bottle
Worms from the back yard
Soil
Sand
Compost
Shredded newspaper
Paper for journalling on
Pencils and other colouring tools
Wormery Making
Pop on over to our Wormery Post to find out full instructions on making a drinks bottle wormery. They are very easy to make and you need around 5 worms in a 2l drinks bottle.
To make our journal I used some paper from an old sketch pad and added coloured paper to the front and back.
I then drew a bottle shape on each page and added some lines underneath where we could write some sentences about the wormery.
Each day we removed the cover from the wormery on the window sill and then sat down and drew in the layers of the soil and any worm holes that may have been made by the worms over night.
Once she had coloured in – we used pens, pencils, wax crayons and got out our water colours to colour in the different soils and what was happening – we then wrote a couple of lines about what we saw.
They were very simple and I wrote the lines and then T traced over the words in a different colour following the letters and “reading” aloud the letters and words as she traced over them.
Journalling with drawing and writing together is a great way to get preschoolers to start recording their observations and can easily be adapted for different situations – both T and J are currently keeping Tadpole Journals as we raise our own tadpoles again this Spring.
Connect, Explore & Learn with Nature
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More Earth Ideas from the #playfulpreschool team
Alphabet Activities: Compost Sensory Bin – Growing Book by Book
Wormery Journaling – Rainy Day Mum
Earth Sensory Table Small World – Mom Inspired Life
On Planet Earth There are Five Oceans – Children’s Song – Capri + 3
Earth Day Preschool Math and Sensory Play – Fun-A-Day!
Layers of the Earth Felt Puzzle – Powerful Mothering
No Mess Painting earth in a Bag – Still Playing School
Building Language Skills for Preschoolers: Earth Theme – Life Over C’s
Earth: Water Cycle – Tiny Tots Adventures
Learning about Earth Through Play: Solar System Floor Puzzle – The Educators Spin On It
Play dough Earth Layers – Learning 2 Walk
Devany says
April 8, 2015 at 1:06 pmOh, I never saw your wormery post before! I love the original idea and this writing extension! We are definitely trying this!
Natasha says
April 8, 2015 at 2:18 pmLove this Journaling idea. I suck at keeping record of our long ongoing projects.
Danielle says
April 8, 2015 at 2:48 pmMy son would love this! It’s really cool!
Theresa says
April 8, 2015 at 3:29 pmThat looks like a lot of fun. I love the journaling idea to complement the wormery. I intend to start vermicomposting again and love the idea of adding journaling for the kids.
Kim says
April 8, 2015 at 6:45 pmMy kids would never play with worms like that, but it looks like fun!
Mary Catherine says
April 9, 2015 at 4:48 pmSo cool! I love how you linked scientific journaling the whole experience. We’re going to have to do the same with some caterpillars we’re thinking of getting!
Jodie @ Growing Book by Book says
April 9, 2015 at 9:03 pmMy boys love to observe worms and help them cross the sidewalk. I love the idea of creating a journal to document their observations.
Nicolette Roux says
April 11, 2015 at 2:43 amWhat a lovely journal!
We are just starting on journals I will add this one to my list too