Science - Discovering Frost: Dino Ice Age

Children play like scientists. When they discover something new and test it; they're experimenting.  They test their own theories as they play. Will the frost disappear if I tread on it? No. What if I rub it with my gumboot really hard? Yes.

We got up and out of the house extra early this morning just so the kids could explore the frost. Frost is new to them so it was fantastic to watch them make discoveries.

A cold winter's morning is great opportunity for parents to explain frost, dew and fog.

In case you need a refresher on how frost forms so you can explain it to your kids, frost is a layer of ice crystals that form when water vapor condenses onto an object which is colder than the surrounding air. In a nutshell.

Some of you might not realise that it gets cold enough for frost (and snow) down here in Australia. There are many parts of Australia that drop below freezing at night during winter. We are approaching beanie and coat weather where we live. Brrrrr...

The frost looked like an alien landscape and called for some explorers. And so, our 'ice age' game began. This has reminded me that I need to create some small worlds for my youngest. He clearly loves small world play which is great because there are some real benefits.

• Allows children to work though their emotions in a safe environment
• Develops language skills as children vocalise their game
• Fosters creative development
• Expands story telling and narrative skills
• Encourages independent play
• Provides sensory and tactile stimulation
• Supports development of hand-eye coordination
• Engages children of all ages 

Afterwards, coming inside and getting cozy by the fire with some hot chocolate sounded like a fantastic idea. 

Have your children discovered frost?

Exploring light - Fiber Optics

Albert Einstein once said, “Play is the highest form of research”.

When we visit Nanny's house, the kids love playing with her fiber optics lamp and jiggling the fibers to create beautiful light squiggles. 

They also discovered, through experimentation, that if they remove the magical looking fibers, it is just an ordinary old lamp and that light only travels through the length of the fibers when attached to the light source. Learning through play - who'd have thunk it?

Face Prints - Printing with Household Items.

We recently had fun printing faces with household objects. We used bread tags, que tips and plastic eggs left over from Easter but you could use anything that you think would make an interesting mark. 

We want to try this again, but next time I think we'll expand on this activity by taking the opportunity to talk about emotions. All the faces are looking a bit shocked here though so we'll have to go on a good ol' scavenger hunt for some more printing tools.

Can you think of a common household object that might make a good smiley face mark?