One of our centers had a makeover recently. Due to the sharing of nature collections from both at school and at home, the children have created what they call “The Science Lab.” We have ample acorns, plentiful pinecones, noodle-like nests, and one slightly dead, but way cool, cicada. The children have created their own experiments involving buoyancy, auditory tones, and habitats. Collections are also a great way to practice our math skills.
Categorizing Keys
Now that we have a giant pile of keys to rifle through, sorting them into categories seems only natural. In small groups this week, the children are choosing their own classifications and adding keys as they meet the requirements. Today’s group of three children broke off into two sorting sections. One child quickly established his own set of piles while the other two worked as a team to designate key properties.
After we’d sorted, the children created signs for the categories. The titles are a testament to your children’s creativity and insight. We had groups of “really mini”, “circle-top”, “hammer”, “froggy”, “suitcase” and “oval”. It was quite interesting to see which sets overlapped in characteristics and name.
A horse is a horse, of course!
In our study of horses, the children were intrigued to learn that there are many different types. Once we began to recognize a few of the distinguishing characteristics, the children became curious about our own plastic horses. We scoured the web for an easy to use guide to help us in our new quest. Once printed, this image helped us figure out how many bays, palominos, appaloosa, and roans we had in our collection.