We worked on calendars and telling time last week, which led really well into working on weather this week. We put extra emphasis on looking at the weather each day as well as the date and day of the week.
Our first activity was to look at the weather forecast. I wrote out what was expected and Peyton drew pictures to go along with it. We taped them to the door and checked every day to see how accurate the forecast was.
There are tons of fun weather experiments to try and both boys really started to look forward to our science time every day. This one makes it rain in a jar. You just put hot water in the bottom and ice on top. The steam rises and even looks like a little cloud near the lid. After a few minutes the water condenses on the bottom of the lid and "rains" down into the jar.
Peyton wanted to sit and just watch this one all day.
Our next project helped us transition into learning about the rainbow. All you need is water and food coloring. Peyton was able to pour the water into the cups and stir in the food coloring to make red, yellow, and blue water.
Next, we rolled up paper towels and arranged them with one end dipped into each cup. The water instantly climbs up the paper towel and you can watch it mix in the middle. In similar projects, I've seen people add extra cups to catch the water that drips down from the middle, mixing the two. Our cups were pretty shallow so we just watched it mix on the towels and looked at where the water dripped onto the tray.
When we were done we also poured the colors together in different cups to make orange, green, and purple.
Jack's favorite part was the pouring, so when we were done I gave him a new cup of water and several different containers to dump and pour with.
Since we were talking about rainbows, our craft time involved making one. I cut strips of paper and asked Peyton to put them in the correct order. When you understand how colors mix together, it's easy to figure out what order the colors go in. Just remember red on the top and purple on the bottom and you can problem solve from there. A couple leading questions helped when he got stuck.
"What mixes with red to make orange?"
"Yellow. So yellow is next?"
"That's right! Now what else can you make using yellow?"
"Green! And it mixes with blue."
It was Peyton's idea that the rainbow lead to a pot of gold so we hunted down some gold Mardi Gras beads and cut up an old box for the cardboard to mount the little display on. It's been the centerpiece of our dining room table ever since.
Peyton loves building and spends hours with his blocks every day. To keep the theme going, I asked him is he could make a rainbow with his blocks.
Throughout the week during his building time I also found that weather began working its way into his projects. His Lincoln Log houses were hit by tornadoes, it would storm over his train tracks, and people would play in his cities on sunny days.
The boys just can't get enough of our science experiments! We mixed up colored water again for this one and added a little vinegar to each. Then Peyton dumped baking soda on top to watch them fizz up and overflow. They happily spent almost an hour adding vinegar and baking soda to the cups. After they overflowed all over the tray, we got a really pretty tie-dye looking mix that Jack especially loved swirling and splashing in.
Peyton spends hours coloring every day lately. He likes to stick with one color a lot while he's drawing but I challenged him to make a rainbow over his city and he happily did it.
For this experiment we layered different liquids. You can see a much better example of it at Sweet and Simple Things. I just did it with ingredients I had in the house so it didn't make an accurate rainbow. The fun part was watching how the liquids make different layers, though.
To change things up from coloring a little bit, we made "magic pictures" one day. You just draw in white crayon on white paper, then paint on top of it to reveal your picture. This is a favorite activity we've repeated several times since. Peyton asks to make magic pictures every few days now.
Peyton brought a bunch of crayons over to me one day and asked me to read all the colors. We talked about why they have the different names they do and what some of the words on the crayons mean. Then We put them together in the order of the rainbow to reinforce what we'd been working on.
Our last weather experiment (for now) was making it rain through shaving cream clouds. This is really easy. You just put a thin layer of shaving cream on top of a jar of water and put a few drops of food coloring on top. On our first try the shaving cream cloud was too thick so it didn't rain, but this worked out because we got to talk about how sometimes it's cloudy out but it doesn't rain.
Once we got them raining, Peyton had a great time putting different colored drops in. At the end the experiment just turned into sensory play. Jack had a great time playing in the shaving cream and painting with it on the table. It was messy, but actually made the dining room smell great!
Looking for more rainbow themed ideas? Check out my Pinterest board, where I got most of the inspiration for this week.
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