Dirt

You may be thinking, "Dirt? What was she thinking?" I'll tell you - kids love dirt! It's all around them, and a huge basis for so many things we do. When I went to the early childhood conference last spring, I went to two sessions where they told us all about how awesome it is for kids developmentally to play outside, with natural things . . . especially dirt! So, it's perfect.

But, what to do? First of all, one of the ladies gave a presentation about using dirt as an art medium. Her presentation is posted here, but I can't get it to work on my computer, so I'll just tell you what we did. We used mud as paint (finger paint),  used it to make 3 dimensional art, and had cars, trucks, and dinosaurs cut out for us to position in our 3-D world. We just molded it on paper plates. We also used mud to make a paper mache kind of thing where we pasted strips of linen onto balloons to make "mud bowls." She also showed us how we can get huge sheets of paper and have the kids make mud print art on them with their feet.

Another thing that was emphasized was letting kids explore the dirt. I think a good science time one day would be giving each kid a square of dirt to work with, and give them each a shovel and a pail. Just let them dig! Whenever they discover things in the dirt, they can put it in their pail. In the end, they can compare the things they each found, and maybe examine their findings with a magnifying glass. Don't have places in your yard to do this? Take a little walk down to the Syphus home, we have the infamous hill-with-no-sprinkling-system.

You can also compare dirt. You could have samples of regular Tooele county yuck dirt, potting soil, and sand. The kids could compare the differences in feel, look, and even smell. They could glue a little bit of each sample to a paper, and dictate one thing they notice about each (example: This dirt is __________.) Make sure if you do activities that require adult help you have activities in mind to engage all of the children while they are waiting for the adult to come around.

One other thing to keep in mind: Dirt is broken down rock (plus some other stuff, depending on what kind of soil it is). And for some rocks, rocks are smashed-together dirt. We just studied rocks. Hmmmm . . .

One more idea that I nabbed from my earth science book. It shows the kids how soil is made/what it's made of. First examine rocks and sand. How are they the same? How are they different? Put a thick layer of sand in a pan or bucket. Then break up some leaves, or other plant material into tiny pieces (grinding between two rocks works). Mix the plant material into the sand, first making sure it's about the same amount as the sand. Now compare your mixture with some soil. How is it alike? Different? Put your mixture aside for several weeks (revist at another preschool session), and compare again. Kids love things like grinding leaves and mixing dirt, so while they might not totally get it, they would like making the concoction and get excited a when they see it change after a while. That excitement would lead to good conversations.

Does all of this sound dirty? Indeed, it is. Might want to tell everybody not to send their child wearing their finest duds. Josh will be in his Wal-Mart Toy Story outfit.

As always, if you have/find other good ideas, feel free to add to this post!