Ice is fun

We had a blast doing experiments with ice. I went to a training recently where we talked about teaching with purpose, and letting youth lead the learning. I wanted to try some youth led science with preschool. I think it was awesome.

Each child had ice. They were able to feel the ice, try stacking it, rubbing it together. Since they are all little and they have oral sensory, they all tasted it as well. I didn't ask them to taste it. It was student led. Then I gave them cold water, and warm water. They felt the two waters with their hands. Then we hypothesized which temperature of water they thought the ice would melt faster in. I can't remember what they thought. The group was divided though, I do remember that.

Then they put some ice in the cold, and some ice in the warm, and watched the ice melt. Some of the darling children were very concerned about their melting ice, and they rescued it.

Then we talked about what happened to the ice. Where did it go? They thought it disappeared, and then they figure it turned into water. If I was smart I would have read them the Shel Silverstein poem about the snowball that wet the bed, but I didn't think of it.

Then we tasted some of the ingredients in ice cream: sugar, vanilla, cocoa, cinnamon, and lime juice. I think that was all. The favorite was the sugar, and the cocoa-which was actually dry hot chocolate. Max really, really liked this activity. He kept wanting more of everything. I was surprised how many of the little munchkins liked the lime juice.

The kiddos also painted with watercolor, and made icecream cones out of paper and snowballs. We had fun with ice.