morning nature watch

Materials needed:

Outdoors

curious kids

camera

messy, mushy, mud

This activitiy is not for the neat-freak mom. It WILL make a mess! But the kids loved it. I told them they were scientists and we would mix all of these items together to see if we could make "mud".



Materials:
aluminum or plastic container with lid (to stir and put mud in)
spoon
wet paper towel or washcloth (to clean up)

Mix the following together (or for more fun, let the kids do it. My 3 year old and 22 month old did fine with it).
1/2 cup cold water
1 TBS oil
2 TBS brown paint (washable is best)
1/2 cup salt
1 TBS cornstarch
Gradually add 1 1/2 cups of flour. You can add more oil and paint if mixture ends up too dry.

My kids loved this "science" activity. We stored the mud in containers to play with later. Have fun!!

magnets

Materials Needed:
a large magnet
paper clips (and staples if you wish)
2 clean plastic containers (I used a juice bottle and bubbles bottle)
sand
water
recording sheet if you want to do predictions

Basic Activity:
Use a magnet to pick up paper clips. Extend the activity by placing paper clips in sand and water and observing if the magnet will still pick up the clips.

We first talked about how magnets pick up certain items and then I recorded our predictions on this page I got out of Mailbox magazine. You could just talk about these things and not record also.


After predicting, start the fun....
Pick up some clips with the magnets. It always thrills my son, time after time!


Next, place some clips into a bottle filled with sand. Shake the bottle well then try to move the clips with the magnet. Tip: We had to place the bottle on its side to see the clips move better.





Next, place some clips in water and see if you can move the clips!



When you are finished talk about whether your predictions were correct. Then have fun finding other magnetic items in the house!

We discovered the corncob holders that were on the table (since I had yet to clean the dishes from dinner) were magnetic.


We also discovered we had a magnetic door!!!