STEAM Activity:
Rain Gauge
Gather a 2-litre plastic bottle, sand, scissors, duct tape and a sharpie marker. Cut the spout off your bottle and set aside. Pour a layer of sand into the bottle to act as a weight, keeping your bottle from falling over. Next, pour some water to saturate this layer of sand, and mark this saturation point with a sharpie. This Is your starting point to measure how much rain is collected. Use a ruler and mark off 1 cm divisions along the side of your bottle. Place the spout upside down back into the bottle to act as a funnel and use duct tape to secure it. Determine how much rain you will need to water your plants!
http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/rain-rain-dont-go-away-rain-gauge/
Science Activity:
Ice Fishing
For this activity, you need a glass dish, a string, ice cubes, salt and water! To start, drag your piece of string through water to saturate it. This will become your fishing rod. Next, pour several ice cubes into your dish and lay your string over the surface of each of the ice cubes. Finally, sprinkle salt along the entire length of the string where it meets the ice. Count to 10 and lift the string carefully. The ice should stick to the string! How does this work? Salt naturally lowers the freezing temperature of water but since the ice cubes cannot get any colder, they start to melt. This melting water surrounding the string then starts to refreeze, trapping the string into its frozen mold.
http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/ice-fishing/
Physical Activity
Clothes Pegs!
This is a fun game to play with the whole family and best implemented outside! To start, each family member gets the same number of clothes pegs secured to the back of their shirts. On the word, ‘go’, each player tries to collect as many clothes pegs as they can from their opponents and clip them to the bottom of their shirts in the front to display their score. Players must play offensively to get these clothes pegs while playing defensively to protect their backs! The player with the most pegs wins!
Creative Activity:
Pencil Holder
For this engaging activity, mix 1 tsp water with several drops of your favourite food colour. Pour mixture into 1 tablespoon of liquid glue and stir well. Ensure you have the colour you want, keeping in mind it will lighten as it dries. Look through your recycling bin or cupboards for any glass jars and paint the gluey mixture onto it. The result is a natural sea glass effect!
Additional Resources:
https://www.freechildrenstories.com/ - This website has a selection of free original stories for children ages 3-10 and novels for middle-grade children written by Daniel Errico.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/babies/play-learning/learning-ideas/early-numeracy - This Australian website page gives suggestions to help your infant or toddler develop numeracy skills. But, don’t stop at just this page. This website contains loads of information, both articles and videos, on parenting for all age groups. Some of the topics covered include behaviour, communication, sleep, nutrition and fitness, play and learning, safety and more.
Learning at Home OSC KidZone Week 15
Learning at Home Infant Week 9
