A photo on Friday, because sometimes all you need is the picture.
Or a sneaky photo collage which could be classified as only one picture (it really could …trust me. I won the discussion with my husband – and yes, in our discussions you either win or lose — well, actually I either win or agree to disagree …)
I brought our water table in for the season, and I opted to fill it with rice. This simple rice table is full of learning! On this day, I gave the boys some different containers and suggested they put 4 scoops of rice in each.
Sam was super surprised that the little container became full to the brim and the biggest container was hardly full at all and yet they both had 4 scoops. He tried it a few times and then played with how many scoops of rice each container would hold.
I’m always surprised when I do activities like this and my little ones don’t respond as I think they will. I had thought it would have been obvious that the big container would have lots of room left and the small container would be full. But that was obvious, I suppose, to me as an adult with lots of experience with things like this.
(You know, all those Saturday nights I spend scooping dry rice into different sized containers …)
Little did my Sam know he was playing, exploring, and discovering the big mathematical topic of volume. But he will one day, and he will think back to this little rice play and grasp those concepts quickly and easily.
Oh the power of play!
Happy Friday! Have a fabulous weekend friends!
Elaine says
October 4, 2015 at 6:51 amwhat about shredded paper? I tried wood shavings from some packing material but it made a terrible mess and was hard to clear up. also conkers and acorns; small branches, some cut up into shorter lengths; a whole lot of corks [I like to use large as well as small items to explore volume and packing things into different shaped containers, eg conkers won’t fit into a tiny opening but straws and spaghetti will, and how much spare room is left over between objects of different shapes]. a collection of different plastic bottle tops is fun for sorting, patterning, shovelling, and a building site. corks and pingpong balls are also great fun in the bath, as they are so buoyant they will shoot up from the bottom of the bath when you let them go…
Sarah says
October 6, 2015 at 9:40 pmFabulous ideas. These should keep us busy for awhile. Thank you Elaine!