Mad Scientists and Their Crazy Experiments

I decided that today would be Mad Scientist Day in this house!  I thought they could use a little messy time and frankly so could I.  I like to have everything cleaned and organized but I like to get messy and dirty too.  I looked up a couple of "recipes" for our experiments and then set to work to create a "laboratory" for the mad scientists. 

I covered my table in newspaper and then put out all the ingredients and tools we would need.  I guess I couldn't get away from the organizing completely.

We all put on our aprons and I told them the only rules were: they were not to eat any of the things we made (Simon broke that one) and they were to wait for instructions before experimenting.

The first experiment we did was a color mixing experiment.  I had prepared glasses of water and food coloring for us to use in this experiment.  I explained to them that when different colors are mixed together, they can create new colors.  We had talked about this before but I wasn't sure how much they remembered. 

Here is the chart that I made and I told them that these were our instructions.  That we needed to mix the two colors that it showed and then put the color that it made after the equals sign.  So I let them each have a turn to mix a color. 

Caleb is finding out what color yellow and blue make. 

Josh just can't resist "helping".

They both observe that yellow and blue make green! 

Josh mixes red and blue together to make purple!

Even the littlest scientist mixes up yellow and red to make orange!

Here is the full results of our experimentation with colors. 

The next experiment we did was with cornstarch and water.  Does anyone know what that makes?  Yep!  Magic Mud!

You use 5 T of cornstarch and

2-3 T of water.  We used some of our colored water because we are just resoureful like that.  Then you stir.  It will be hard to stir and the big, mad scientist may have to help the little, mad scientists out with the stirring.

But then you will have this!  A BIG cornstarchy mess.  Just kidding!  It's a fun goop to play with!

It's hard to the touch when poked firmly, but if you just set your finger on it then it sinks down into it just like a liquid.  If you roll it around into a ball it will stay as long as you're rolling and then when released it turns all liquidy. 

Simon experimented with the taste...he said it was, "Yuck!"

Then, even though there was cornstarch ALL over my floor, we did our third and final experiment for the morning.  We made Kool Aid-Play Dough! 

Josh did such a good job of measuring out the flour.

Caleb is measuring out the salt. 

He kept stopping and saying, "Is that all?"

Caleb added the orange Kool-Aid while Josh stirred.  I gave them the choice between orange or grape and of course one chose orange and the other grape!  I had to hold them behind my back and have Caleb choose a hand to make our decision.

Then I poured in the boiling water and the vegetable oil and Josh stirred for a little while.  Then he said it was too hard and stinky! 

The littlest scientist experimented with the markers while the rest of us made play dough.  I like the apron with no pants look.  It kind of reminds me of the chaps with no pants look! 

The dough was great fun for our Mad Scientist experiments.

Cutting play dough is so much FUN!

And yes, I gave Simon a knife...but I promise it is not sharp!  What kind of mother do you think I am?!

What I really like is the brown marker that found it's mark on his face.  Oh yeah, and he ate some of this experiment too!

We spent over two hours doing our experiments and there was no fighting, whining or complaining.  Just lots of mess making.  I mean experimenting.  I love my Mad Scientists!

It works for me!

The Letter H and the Number 8

It's been awhile since I have posted one of my lesson plans.  I have now stopped at the letter P with the kids and I will pick it back up in the Fall with Caleb and Simon.  Josh will be starting Kindergarten!  I'm not sure if I am ready for that. Any how, there has just been too many extra things going on for me to write out a week of lesson plans.  Oh well, we all need a break.

So here is what we did for the letter H and the number 8.

I introduced them to the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" and they colored a coloring page I found HERE.
We did the tracer pages for the letter H and the number 8.  The letter H can be found HERE and the number 8 can be found HERE.  We sang the songs "Head and Shoulders" and "If You're Happy and You Know It".  We talked about homes and the different places that people live.  We also looked at the different kinds of houses that animals make for themselves.  You can find some activities on homes HERE and HERE.  We made the mini booklet and then an activity where you matched the animal to their home.  And of course our last name starts with an H and so we practiced writing that. 

I didn't take any pictures during the H-week except for some of Simon in his apron that Grandi made for him.  Isn't he cute?!

The Letter G and the Number 7

The week we were on the letter G and number 7 we celebrated St. Patricks Day. So I made four-leaf clovers out of green construction paper that they could count. We made rainbow cupcakes which I wrote about HERE and had a picnic in the park where we flew kites.

We also did a Letter G tracer page and a Number 7 tracer page which you can find HERE.  We made new playdough during this week.  I used the recipe that I posted HERE.  We sang the first 3 commandments and learned the fourth and you can find that song HERE. 

The Letter F and the Number 6

During this week we talked about many f-words but we really spent time talking about fish, frogs and firemen.  We read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and then made our own rainbow fish. I used the template HERE to trace a fish onto construction paper and then had the boys use their glue sticks to put on the tissue paper "scales".

We took a trip to Gander Mountain, the sporting goods store, and had a F scavenger hunt. The boys found fishing items, fur(on stuffed animals), furniture, and more. There is a room, in the back of the store, in which you can practice shooting a bow and arrow. There were several men in there practicing on that day and the boys liked watching.

We looked at some pictures of the different life stages of frogs. Eggs, tadpoles and frogs. I just searched for "pictures of frog life cycle" on google and then showed them real pics of each stage. Then we made a life cycle wheel that I found HERE I showed them how to do frog jumps as an exercise. They tried to hop over eachother...so then it just turned into a wrestling match. We did exercises by sixes. 6 push-ups, 6 leg-lifts, 6 frog jumps, etc...

We did several frog things over the course of the week. We sang The Little Green Frog, which I had forgotten the words to but I found it HERE and we made a little frogs using a empty toilet paper tubes, which I found HERE.

We read some books that we have about firemen and dressed up as firemen. We learned the 3rd commandment, "Do not misuse God's name" and sang all three everyday. For the song you can find it HERE.

We also talked alot about family and friends. I was amazed and blessed to hear Josh and Caleb name their family members and talk about the things they liked about each family member. So we all traced a hand and on each individuals hand I wrote, for example: "Joshua is special because..." and so on. Then everyone mentioned what they thought was special about that person and I wrote it on their paper hand. Then I cut the hands out and strung them up and hung it on our dining room light fixture. This is the only thing I managed to get a picture of during that week!

We also read some more out of James and Giant Peach and of course we did the tracer pages for the letter F and the number 6, which you can find HERE and HERE. We also did the red coloring page that is found HERE.

The Letter E and the Number 5

When we did this week it was the first part of March. So I found a March poem HERE, along with the poems for the rest of the months of the year. During this week we continued to learn our phone number. Josh knows it now but Caleb is still working on it.

We started reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl during this week and the boys love it, even though there are some big words and few pictures. I think that after we read the book we will watch the movie. I've never seen it and I know the boys haven't either.

We talked about eggs and a couple of days did different egg activities. We hard-boiled eggs and then put tissue paper all over them to dye them. You can get instructions for this activity HERE. We also sang the Oh I Wish I Were a Teeny Tiny Egg song that you can find on that same page. I would give one piece of advice for the egg and tissue paper activity. Make sure you have bold colors and that you wet the eggs and paper thoroughly.

We did the experiment HERE called Egg Detective. The boys really enjoyed spinning the eggs and surprisingly we did the activity without having any broken eggs.

We talked about exercise a couple of days and so we did things like jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, and we hopped. Since we were learning about the number 5 we did 5 of each activity.

One day we read The Saggy Baggy Elephant and then made our own elephants using the template HERE.

We made a growth chart this week and talked about how every living thing grows. We are going to take a measurement at the beginning of every month. The boys enjoyed seeing how tall they were and Josh enjoyed telling Caleb that he was bigger than him. We also talked about parts of our bodies that start with E. Eyes, ears, and elbows. We sang Do Your Ears Hang Low and Head and Shoulders

We went over the 1st Commandment in the 10 Commandment Song and then I introduced them to the 2nd Commandment.

The boys did the tracer pages for the letter E, number 5 and also a worksheet for the color Orange. All the ones we used can be found HERE.

The Letter D and the Number 4

My boys love Dinosaurs so we did a lot with Dinosaurs this week. I found this cool hatching Dinosaur Egg at a learning store (can't remember the name of it). Here are a couple of pics as it hatched. It took about 3 days for the whole thing to process. The boys thought it was pretty neat.





Again I printed off tracer pages for the letter D and the number 4 at DLTK. I also printed out the pages for the Letter D mini book. Which I think this was the last week that I did the letter books. The boys just weren't that crazy about them. No sense in wasting paper and ink! Nor my time in getting them to sit still and color the pages!

DLTK also had a fun dinosaur song, "Oh I wish I were a big ol' dinosaur" and I printed out the Dotty Dinosaur story. I took the words and printed them on different pages to make story pages. I traced out a dinosaur in the different colors the story said and then the boys and I found all the different colors of food that Dotty ate! They really had fun doing that.






Then the finger painted the dots on a Dinosaur. Simon painted too!



We started the 10 Commandments this week also. I thought they might be able to learn them if it was put to a song. I found this idea HERE. I am just doing one a week and singing it every day with them. Every week adds a new one. I really don't think they have it but they seem to think it's fun.
Joshua saw hopscotch on a show we watched and so he wanted to play that at the park. That was fun to teach him. If you had a hard time remembering how to play you can brush up on your hopscotch HERE. We went on several walks and looked for things that start with the letter D and we would find 4 rocks or 4 leaves. Doing things you do every day but just think of how the letter and the number could be incorporated. It is great because it can turn some not so fun things into a game. For example: when it was time to clean up I would set the timer for 4 minutes and they would have to bring me 4 things that started with the letter D. This made for eager helpers!

Also, if your kids have not seen Dinosaur Train yet, you should check it out. My boys love it. It comes on our PBS channel.

Happy Learning! Please feel free to leave comments with your ideas and leave any links you think would be helpful!

Calendar Time

One of the things we started this January, is a calendar time. I purchased a large bulletin board sized calendar from Michaels. I took everything to Copy Corner and had it laminated. It was less than $25 to do and I cut everything out myself. They offered to do it for me at Copy Corner but it would have cost extra. Plus it gave me something to do while watching my shows. I found a spot in my home that could be easily accessed and just stapled it up. I use scotch tape on the numbers and the days of the week.



There are lots of ways you can teach with your calendar but here is what we try to do every morning. I move the days of the week around on the spots that say "Yesterday was...", Today is..." and "Tomorrow will be..." and say it out loud as I change them. So there it is teaching them the proper way to talk about past, present and future. It also helps in learning the order of the days.

So then I say, for example, "Today is Friday, March 19, 2010. Can you find that on the calendar?" Then one of the boys will find it and we will talk for a minute about what we have planned for the day. We will talk about any birthdays that are that day or we will look ahead and count towards a special day they are looking forward to. That is a way to incorporate math into Calendar Time. Then we sing the "Days of the Week" song. Which I found HERE. We do the version that is sung to the tune of "The Addams Family". Josh learned it pretty fast and Caleb gets them right most of the time. Simon dances to the song while we sing and tries to snap his fingers.

We occasionally talk about the weather too. It came with a little card to put different tags with weather on them. That is in a different spot in our house. I enjoy calendar times and it usually helps to set the tone for the day. I think I am going to start saying a morning prayer with them at this time too. It is always a good idea to start the morning off with prayer, right?!

Letter C and Number 3

We are now in the week of Letter F and Number 7, so I am a bit behind in my blog posts concerning our school weeks. However, I have all my lessons typed up in word documents for each week. I don't make it really fancy and it is just reminders, sometimes not even full sentences, to keep me on track for that day.

Every day we look at our calendar and talk about what day it is. I purchased one of those calendars that teachers use on the bulletin board. I had all the pieces laminated and so I can change the days around for each month. I will do a whole post on the calendar later and different ways we use it. I mention it here in this post because we talked about calendar starting with "C".

I make a game of pointing out some things around the house that start with the letter we are talking about and then I will ask them to find some things that start with that letter. Along with finding things that begin with the letter, they also find many things that do not. But that is okay, because then I just say "That is a Duh-Duh-Dinosaur. Does that sound like a C? Cah, Cah..." Then they are hearing lots of letter sounds. We have Cubbies which is the Awana's group they are in and then Church so that was fun to be able to talk about those "C" words and how CH makes the "chu" sound.


I used the tracer pages for the letter C and the number 3 at DLTK's Growing Together. I used a "C" booklet which you can find there also.

They started learning our phone number during this week. Josh had it memorized by the end of the week. Caleb is still learning it. I just wrote it on their easel and we looked at it each day and said it together.

One day we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and made our own caterpillars and then turned them into butterflies.

I helped them to hot glue pompom balls on one side of a clothespin and then we cut off a small piece of pipe cleaner and I wrapped it around the top and pointed the ends up like antennae. So that was our caterpillars.


To turn our caterpillars into butterflies, we painted paper towels with colored water. I just dropped food coloring into water for them to paint with. You could use watered down paint of any kind, if you prefer.




Then to dry our butterfly wings (paper towels) quickly, I set the oven to the lowest degree setting and put the wings on a baking sheet and set them in the oven. It didn't take long. Then I showed them how to kind of accordion fold the towel and we pinched the middle with our clothespin.



The week that we were on the letter C and number 3 was the week right before Valentines Day. So we made cookies that Saturday and some valentines for friends and family. The recipe we used for the sugar cookies can be found here .

Letter B and Number 2

There are so many things that start with the letter B! We read books about Bears and Butterflies. We played with balls; tossing and catching. We sang "The B-I-B-L-E" and "Baby Bumblebee"
The day we sang "Baby Bumblebee" we also made our own bumblebees using the template at DLTK. We made ours using empty toilet paper rolls and then just printing out the template and coloring it. Then we cut out the body, wings, face, stinger, and antennae. We then glued them on the tubes and I strung them with string and hung them in our kitchen chandelier. The kids really liked that.





We also had bread and honey for a snack that day and listened to the sound of honeybees in a hive at National Geographic and looked at some of their pictures also.

One day we made bread. That was fun and I had never made bread before. I have made biscuits but not bread. So I just used the recipe on the outside of the package of the quick-rise yeast I bought. It was easy enough, except that I did not really know how many times to knead it or anything. Anyways, we made rolls with it and they were good. A little dense, not the light and fluffy kind. The boys had fun mixing and kneading the dough. I need to practice making bread and hopefully get better.







I also printed out the Letter B Trace sheet and the B mini book for each of them. We also practiced writing the number 2 .
We took a muffin pan and I had them put 2 beads in each muffin spot and then we counted by two's. They can not do this on their own yet but I thought it would be good to introduce the concept. I found the beads at Hobby Lobby last year and have done counting activities using them many times.

We looked through old magazines and cut out things that begin with B and things that we found two of. They were able to practice using the scissors. Then we used glue sticks to glue them on a big piece of paper.

Letter A and Number 1

We started school in January at my house. I decided to plan out "school" activities for Josh and Caleb to do during the week. I started with the Letter A and the Number 1 because, well, I just like to start at the beginning. So here are some things I did with them for those of you who are interested in finding new ideas for things to do with your preschoolers.

I found most every idea online at one website or another. I will try to link to them directly for each activity I mention.

First of all, I am always open to learning opportunities with the kids so just because I designate a letter and number for the week does not mean that is the only thing we talk about.

That said, we did talk a lot about apples that week. There are just so many fun things to do with an apple theme.

We shopped for apples at the grocery store that Monday and purchased 1 each of Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Honey Crisp. I used the 4 different apples as kind of a science lesson. We sat at the table and discussed how the apples look different and came up with a hypothesis: The apples look different and taste different. So then we tested the hypothesis by trying a bite of each apple. After trying each one we wrote down a description of the apple; soft, hard, sweet, etc.... They did all taste different. We all picked our favorite out of the 4. I cut one of the apples in half horizontally so that they could see the star pattern in the middle. We talked about the different parts of an apple; skin, fruit, core, seeds and stem. It was fun to see them experience and learn new things and to see them having fun doing it.

One day we painted with apples cut in half. Some vertically and some horizontally.


Here are the finished apple paintings. I made these picture frames a couple of years ago, to hold their artwork. Maybe I will post later about how I made them.

One day we made Apple Butter. They really enjoy helping me in the kitchen. The Apple Butter turned out pretty good. Here is where I found the recipe we used. Alphabetsoup.net They have a lot of themes to choose from and I have found this to be one of my favorite sites.

We read every day but I found a few books that I pulled out ecspecially for the week. Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg and The Ant and the Grasshopper (An Aesops Fable). We sang Way Up In the Apple Tree and a few other songs I picked out from the Alphabet Soup website.

I want them to start learning to write the alphabet as well as recognize the letters and know the sounds they make. So I have been using the tracer pages at dltk-teach.com . You can make your own or use the ones they have. They have letters and numbers. It's pretty cool. So of course we did the letter A and the number 1 during A week.

Thats all for that week. We are now on Letter C and Number 3. We have had a Letter B and Number 2 week and a Letter A and B review week. So far it has been really fun to think out and plan activities to do with my boys.

Acorn Art

I found this idea on another blog and tried it with the kids on Monday. They had fun picking the acorns and then painting with them. All that I had to do was cut out the giant acorn stencil. I think I am going to cut them into placemat size and laminate them.