Who needs "Frozen"...when we have ice!!!!

If you have been anywhere near a preschool (or older), you have felt the effects of that famous icy movie from the Disney Company.  You can probably even sing a line or two from one of the many songs but how can you get your kiddos from out in front of the television and really experince what frozen really means. With cold weather and plummeting temperatures for much the U.S., it maybe hard for many adults to think about these concepts but these are prefect learning opportunities for children.

Today after our blizzard of a snowstorm on Monday night (haha that is suppose to be funny because we mainly received ice), our class did a brain walk to discuss ice/snow then went adventuring outdoors.  First our brain walk was about where we may find or discover ice outside and with this, no answer is wrong and all ideas are accepted. This gave the children free range on what their ideas could be and the endless possibilities that we could explore. 

Please make sure that everyone has an opportunity to share. If you are doing this at home, you need to include everyone especially the adults and you could space it out over several days if your frozen stuff hangs around that long...down here, not so much.

Our next step was to venture outdoors....always looking for learning opportunities please allow your child to put on all "their gear" by themselves and build up the anticipation for the event.

Look at those faces, we were so ready to go!!!!! We took a picture of our list to bring with us outdoors because our list was on a large flip chart but you could always just bring the list.  We re-read several of the predictions as soon as we got outside because we could see these spots immediately such as "on the playground" and "on the ground". Our little guy who predicted "on the roof" was slightly disappointed when there was none on the roof to our building but we reassured him that we would keep looking (and did find some, which led to another discussion about shade and sun.)

We then went walk about to see what else we could find our list....we also had to skate our way across the playground....even the teachers loved it.

As we continued, we read off each place that had been predicted then added some that were not list but that we discovered while we were looking around the area. Here are several examples...

We skated our way down to the slides and the creek area.

The girls discovered that the ice was two different colors and felt different as well.

Our discovery that the bike track was covered with ice but the bikes didn't have any on them.

We had to add the bridge to our list because it was not on before we came outside.

The stumps were another addition to our list...

The girls discovered the ice felt different if it was on top of the cut stump vs. on the side of the stump on the bark...

Happy teachers because these kiddos can teach and learn on their own in their natural environment.

This activity may seem like something that is so simple but children need this time to discover the beauty of our natural environment even in the cold temperatures.  Through this activity, the kids made predictions, drew their own concludions, and added to their hypothesis of their "experimental adventure".  Science and math need not to be hard just inviting to an open mind and a willing heart to learn more.  So grab your kiddos and find some cold weather adventures!!!!! Next week...make it take it experiments....

Happy experimenting!!!! Ms. Kelly and Ms. Gen