October Extreme STEAM Science News

Dear Parents,

I hope you are enjoying some of the last warm days before Fall makes her presence known.  The children and I have been busy in the Extreme STEAM Science Center.  We had fun learning the parts of an apple and examining each part with our magnifying lenses.  We were amazed to watch an apple sit in lemon juice for over a week and not turn brown. We all agreed though, that the taste would not be as yummy!! Our younger scientists (2 and 3 year olds) had a lot of fun trying to make our apple seeds jump.

We had some “colorful” fun this month mixing colored baking soda with colored vinegar.  We all enjoyed the colorful explosion each combination made.  We had green, purple, orange and some other colors we could not identify, bubbling up all over the science lab – how fun it was!  Without even realizing, our scientists were learning about chemical mixtures, mixing colors and we even got some fine motor skills covered using our pipettes.

As we started October, we entered into our 5 Senses Unit.  We were surprised that we could fool our noses just by adding some food color to water.   The weather was so nice we decided to take a 5 senses walk.  We explored the beautiful Park Shore campus with our eyes, ears, nose, and touch – yes, we did refrain from tasting anything!!  We found acorns, pine cones and crunchy leaves.  We all agreed the pine cones smelled good but were sticky to touch.  We discovered that when one sense isn’t being used, others may take over to help us out. We used a “Feely Box” in order to demonstrate this. The children put their hands into a box which contained various objects that were concealed from their sight. By using only their sense of touch, they chose an item and tried to figure out what it was.  Fun was had by all when we had to match our sound bottles to the same sound as one of our friends.   We discovered our taste buds are only on our tongue. We will end our 5 Senses Unit with an experiment that asks us to use all 5 senses to solve a problem.

Our toddlers used water play and finger painting with edible finger paint (made out of sugar, flour, water and food coloring) to explore their senses. We also enjoyed making lime prints and listening to our friends using our own homemade telephone.

As Halloween approaches, all age groups will enjoy making some Halloween slime and we will learn exactly how a spider does not get caught up in his own web!!

Miss Tina

Science Teacher