Young Scientists at Play: Concoction Lab

This week during our hour of Young Scientists at Play I created a concoctions lab, enlisting the help of one of my twins:

I made up a tray full of bits and pieces from the kitchen:

The tray contained coloured water, coloured vinegar and coloured milk; also it had baking powder, bicarb, flour, cornflour and icing sugar. I popped in spoons, mixers and a turkey baster

Each little 'un had a small tray with mixing bowls, sieve, spoons, syringe and goggles — Each little ‘un had a small tray with mixing bowls, sieve, spoons, syringe and goggles

And then we let the fun begin! We are always as hands off as possible during preschool science. This is chiefly exploratory time for them and as such I have NO end result in mind. This is one of the most freeing ways to home school, yet the children are still learning loads:

She gives her full concentration to every mixture

Only looking up to tell me all she is seeing and discovering

For B2 it is one of the few times in our week when I seem to have her full attention

where her utter sense of wonder prevails over everything — where her sense of wonder prevails over everything

and generally captures the heart of all and any who happen to be in the room.

B2 is by far my hardest baby to keep content. She is unsettled ALOT of the time. Yet for one hour a week she is peaceful, absorbed, with no expectations hampering her learning. This has fed some rather exciting ideas for an hour activity each day, with open-ended learning for my pre-schoolers. I’ll share in the future, if they prove successful.

I had one last activity for my little ones, to reinforce what they had learnt the week before. A4 was very excited. She is such a pleasure to teach, lapping up anything and everything I do with her. Such a privilege to home-school! This time I filled them a small tray each, full of bicarb. I filled up a couple of trays of test tubes with vinegar which I coloured lots of different colours:

The littles itching to get at their trays, pipettes at the ready!

The goal was for them to pipette different colours of vinegars onto the bicarb, not just to see the fizzy reaction, but to notice the mixing of colours:

This was such a great activity, as gratification was an immediate and fizzy reaction

Again A4 was very methodical and placed each colour next to each other rather than mixing them

She loved seeing all the colours merging and producing new ones

This one hour of science play has helped open my eyes to see potential in B2, a peek into her way of learning, into the activities which interest her. I think it has been one of the most successful ideas I have ever implemented in our school. Long may it last!

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