Ropes make for one of the best loose parts’ play in preschool! Watch the next video:
science in preschool
Balloon powered cars
We are the robots (II)
Everything started with Christos’ idea for a “rain-robot”. But what is the robot; Our hypotheses were verified by watching videos with robots in school ‘s projector room.
We copied the moves of the robots
We made the faces of the robots from recycled material
We became the robots by wearing tin uniforms
We split into groups and played a board game, cutting parts for a robot’s body
We rolled the dice, found the corresponding member of the robot’s body and stuck it on the paper
And so we made our robots!
(by Eleni Triantafyllopoulou, teacher in post-toddlers’ class in Athens)
Children are always right, even when we think they are wrong…
Sometimes we, educators, make mistakes…
One day, in our beloved yard, Chrysi got a cart, turned it upside down and tried to climb on it.
I hastily said “Chrysi, that’s not right“. She, however, stepped on it and proudly started playing by turning cart into a slide. The game started and Christos came to claim his turn.
All I had to say then was “next please!“. Chrysi’s “wrong” use of the cart turned out to be the right game!
(by Maria Gryllaki, teacher in babies’ class in Athens)
How does it rain? Let’s experiment!
In school bus kids started a discussion about how does water gets included into the clouds and where does it come from?
First, we noted on paper our thoughts and thought about the continuous circular movement of water. We talked about the global water cycle and wrote down the phrase, in Greek.
Afterwards, we experimented over the phenomenon of condensation and found out that our breath is hot air. Blurring the windows of the school bus with our breaths, helped us realize how air changes into liquid.
Then we played by creating patterns on the windows. Some children recognized the same happens in their bathroom.
The experimentation thrilled children and their interest continued at home. So, Despina brought us a photo she took out of the experiment she made in home with a glass and ice cubes.
We also studied the opposite phenomenon, evaporation, in which water is converted into air. We all remembered, from our daily life, when mom spreads out wet clothes to dry. At the same time we threw water on our trousers to see what happens and how quickly it dries.
Back in class, school bus children continued to experiment on evaporation during cleaning the blackboard with a wet sponge. They wrote something on the board using the wet sponge and shortly after it was lost! Rest children of the class liked the experiment and asked to write with a wet sponge, too. As you can imagine, we ended having the cleanest blackboard in school!!
(by Eleni Triantafyllopoulou, bus school teacher in Athens)
Ophthalmology class in school bus (II)
After the experience children had in school bus with Spyridoula’s eye glasses, they asked me if I can see clearly while not wearing mine.
I replied that when not in glasses, I use eye-lenses. Next day, I gave them a pair of lenses to come in contact with. They touched them, smell them and realized that after a while they got dry.
So, I told them to place them into their own case with the special liquid and lenses became wet and resilient again.
Since then, every time that I don’t wear glasses, children look into my eyes and try to “locate” my lenses.
(by Chrysa Vaitsi, cross-class projects’ coordinator in Athens school)
Ophthalmology class in school bus!
Children always laugh when they see my eyes like this!
One day, kids asked me: “hey, what’s happening with your glasses and they can make your eyes so big? We want to know how you see”!
I told them eye-doctor says I have Hypermetropia. “And how does he know?” they further asked. So, I brought them printed papers with numbers and pictures, like the ones eye-doctors use.
They started examining themselves
and also asked to be examined by their friends.
Then, I gave them my glasses to understand “how I see”. Children tried them in many ways and said “Woooooow, everything looks bigger through your glasses!!!”.
They got really excited by all this. Now, they may decide to construct an eye-clinic in class, examine other children and prescript the right glasses!!!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class in Athens)
Why not the whole universe
When we looked through our big plastic telescope, we noticed something very strange: everything had turned upside down!
So, we asked help from Yannis, an amateur astronomer!
He brought his professional telescope, let us see the sun through it and answered all our questions.
Children grabbed the opportunity to make constellations on the ground with sand and small stones.
But why not even form the whole universe!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class in Athens)
An I-don’t-want-it-to-end game!
Something special happened in pre-K class!
Everyone brought his or her favorite doll or teddy and turned it into an astronaut!
The space suit was made from aluminum foil.
When all astronauts were ready, went to the roof top of the school and flewwwwwww!! (wearing parachutes for protection)
An I-don’t-want-it-to-end game!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class, in Athens)
Bus time is questions’ time!
Dimitris asked a question in school bus: “what happens when we mix red and blue color?” So, the experiment began!
We mixed red and blue color with water, separately, in two different cups.
Then, we made a “paper bridge” for each cup, which transported red and blue into a third cup!
Next day we observed the results of the experiment. Now we had blue, red and a third color!
Then we used all three colors to paint!
(by Eleni Triantafyllopoulou, teacher and bus escort in Athens school)
Life-derived Learning 