Scripted Earth Science/ Geology session on Fossils

Science is 'my thing' but I didn't realise until recently what a gift it was to understand it easily and how many other parents didn't feel very comfortable with it. With this and my 2013 goals in mind, I offered to put some things together for a new monthly home ed group that we are involved with. Here is the basic script that I wrote (it was embellished and altered as we went according to the children's responses!). The PDF of this session is available here

Beginning – Story Sandwich

Tell the story of coastal animals that met grisly ends and encase them in a bread layer as I talk – shaped marshmallows for jellyfish, flat laces for seaweeds, milk bottles for fish, chocolate mice for shelled ammonites, cover it in plastic, put heavy books on it and come back to it later.

Part One – What is a fossil?

If I wasn’t here any more and you wanted to tell a stranger about me, what would you say? How would you describe me to them? (blue eyes, brown curly hair, clothes wearing, woman etc)

Show children the picture of the fossilised dinosaur – What can we tell about what this dinosaur was like? (big, had horns, teeth etc) What about the colour, the pattern on the skin, did it have fur or scales? How do we know? Do we know for sure or are we guessing? (discuss children's ideas)

We struggle to answer some of these questions because when an animal was fossilised, not all of the animal became the fossil. Which bits do become fossilised? (bones/teeth) What happens to the other parts? (eaten/rotted).

Have you ever watched a wildlife film where a lion kills an antelope or something and lots of animals come and pick at the carcass until there are only bones left? Do you think that happened to dinosaurs?

What if the animal died by a river and then there was lots of rain and the river burst its banks and a huge torrent of water rushed down and swept the bones away? What might have happened? (demo this with remains in tray and jug of water as the ‘torrent’ washing them away) It splits the bones up/spreads them out so they aren’t altogether as one skeleton.

Do you think it is easier for palaeontologists to guess about the animal if the bones are altogether or scattered down the riverbed? (lead them to suggest easier if not scattered) Why is it harder if they are scattered? (because like a jigsaw to put back together – demo putting the ‘bones’ back together the wrong way to make a silly skeleton).

Play Fossilisation Game

Children are given roles to play that match the coastal creatures in the story – seaweed (waves), fish (wiggle and blow bubbles), jelly fish (bob up and down), ammonites (twizzle round), Flying dinosaur (flap arms and squawk), sea predator (shark fin and ominous noises made).  Shout ‘go’ then ‘freeze’ and walk around, touching various creatures on the head and announcing the grizzly end that they met and which meant that they weren't fossilised e.g. seaweed rots, jellyfish washed away, fish eaten by flying dinosaur, etc etc. Shout ‘go’ again and continue until only two left – ammonite (buried in a mud slide) and sea predator (dies from old age, sinks to the bottom and is covered with sand brought in by a coastal storm).  Explain to the children that this shows that not many animals became fossils, it was actually very rare for it to happen and they are pretty special!

 

Part Two – How do Fossils Form?

So we know that fossils are the remains of ancient creatures and it is rare and special, but HOW does it happen? How does this (hold up dinosaur) become this (hold up dino skeleton), (talk about answers the children give).

Have a look at some fossils that we have and some pictures. There are different ways that animals and plants become fossils, and I’ve set up some activities for you to have a go making some of them for yourself take the children to the activity table and go round it, talking them through the types of fossil.

There are impression fossils - imprint fossils, small thin things like leaves, feathers and fish became squashed in layers of sediment and rotted away, leaving the imprint of themselves behind and ‘mould and cast’ fossils where a bigger creature such as an ammonite was buried under the layers. It took longer to rot so kept its shape as the layers turned to rock. Eventually it rots and its size and shape is left exactly in the rock (the mould). The cavity can eventually fill up and this takes on the exact shape of the original animal (the cast) – demonstrate pulling one out of the mould.

 

fossil 'moulds' ready to be cast

Adding plaster of paris to the moulds to make a fossil 'cast'

There are trace fossils which are marks and tracks left by animals to show that they were once there but have moved on – these could be footprints, egg shells, coprolite (fossil poo) etc.

Making dinosaur footprints in playdough

Preserved organisms – encased in snow and ice like woolly mammoths, soft tissue preserved and doesn’t rot so know more about them. Also insects in sap, hardens to amber over time – hand out ‘preserved’ sweets in jelly cubes.

Mineral replacement fossils – familiar dinosaur bones, water seeps through rock, dissolves bones but leaves minerals in place, turning the bones to stone.

Breaking open fossil rocks

 

Part Three – How do People find Fossils?

Go back to the sandwich story and peel back layers, see what happened to the different fossils, which were cast and mould, which imprint, which mineral replacement etc – one at the bottom died first, would it be unearthed first or last by palaeontologists? Why? Talk about it, show activities – dinosaur dig in sand and brushes (mark on a grid if they like), coffee ground ‘stones’ with pasta pieces to ‘excavate’.

 

I used various books and websites for inspiration, many of the activities were adapted from the ideas I read, to suit the materials and the time that we had. Here are some of the links and further information:

• Fossil sandwich idea, I used five pieces of bread and told a dramatic story as we went about coastal storms, mud slides, and strong currents, and embellished how the various animals died, I used different types of sweets to illustrate different types of organisms - after explaining the different types of fossils to the children, at the end of the script, we unpicked the sandwich to see how the sweets had fared and which type of fossil they thought each one was most like - then they ate them in a bit of a free for all!
• River flood demonstration was my idea - I bought a sand pit mould set of a large dinosaur and arranged it in an underbed storage tray then 'washed it away' with a jug of water with the tray slightly angled, then the children could see how it would get jumbled up and try to rearrange it.
• Fossilisation game adapted from here, I made it mirror the fossil sandwich story in what happened to the creatures as they were destroyed or fossilised. The children were enchanted with this game and asked for the post-it notes afterwards to play it by themselves!
• Imprint and trace fossils were made with play dough and leaves, feathers, a large plastic fish with textured skin and dinosaurs to make footprints.
• Mould and cast fossil instructions, I found that the ration of plaster of paris: water was roughly two:one to get a nice creamy texture. I made up enough moulds before the session for each child to choose one and make their cast in during the session to take home and allow to dry then paint if they wished. The picture below shows the moulds in the process of being made. I used shells and dinosaur sand pit mould pieces to make the moulds, and the kiwis were needed to weight them down into the plaster of paris as it set (which takes about 40 mins). I then popped them out to dry fully. The tin is a six hole muffin tin, my 'quarter cup' measure made about enough plaster to fill these moulds, the larger ones needed more.

• Preserved organism jellies - I can't remember where I saw this idea, I made up some jelly with just over half the recommended amount of water and poured it into a sandwich box lined with waxed paper. I allowed it to cool for a short time then carefully spaced out small jelly sweets inside as the 'insects' with the jelly as the 'amber'. The children were cautious initially as I offered them a fossilised insect to eat but caught on quickly!!!
• Coffee ground stones - I added more sand to this to make it grittier, and baked them for about forty minutes - we needed a small hammer to get into them, the pasta pieces inside weren't very successful, they broke up too easily or couldn't be extracted.... the fact that they go into the oven restricts what you can put inside them.

All told, it went really well, the children were eager to share their ideas and knowledge and loved the activities, there was a real hum of activity around the table afterwards and children of ages ranging from 19 months to 8 years anjoyed the hands on activities. All the families are keen for another session so watch this space for further earth science next month!!!

Home-made Bath Paints

We had some fun with these last week - it was an idea that I 'pinned' to my pinterest board (which was the only reason I joined facebook in the end, so that I could use pinterest! I can actually find links to things again instead of plodding through umpteen saved links!). The original idea comes from The Imagination Tree. They are very simply made by mixing a small amount of food colouring into shaving foam...

Then add paintbrushes and voila - bath time fun........ Eve is very taken with the idea of painting her nails at the minute, so she painted her nails with it!

Faith meanwhile painted as much of the bathroom wall as she possibly could - I can only show you a small part of it though as after the Winter in my little old and cold house, the grout needs scrubbing clean again!!!!!

We tried to make red, blue, purple and green too but they went amazingly wrong! When we added the red and blue to the shaving foam, it turned the foam a pale grey and formed capsules of red and blue colouring. We pulled the capsules out and they were powdery inside - a fascinating reaction with the foam and just as entertaining as the bath paints but left us with a sadly depleted colour palette!! The green simply went yellow!

Having a Whale of a Time!

Eve is always very interested in Oceans and their wildlife and prompted by a trio of recent BBC programmes about Whales and dolphins, we embarked on some whale activities to explore them a little more.

We listened to Whale Song on YouTube.

We read the books 'Journey of a Humpback Whale' which is a DK level 2 reader that I hope Eve will tackle bu herself a little, and 'Big Blue Whale' by Nicola Davies. This last one is such a lovely book, with factual information described in beautiful language and pitched just right - I am begged to read this over and over again!

From the book 'Awesome Ocean Science' by Cindy Littlefield we did a couple of experiments. (thanks to The Homeschool Den for that recommendation! - check out the brilliant Ocean activities they have been doing - scroll down to find the posts!) 

Here we made a baleen whale by cutting a mouth in the end of a milk carton, and then slits along the side to make the baleen. In the washing up bowl is a generous sprinkling of dried herbs to represent krill. The girls scooped up a mouthful of 'sea water' then emptied it out through the 'baleen' and it left a coating of krill behind for the milk carton whale to lick off and eat! 

The girls remembered from the book that the krill make the whales put on layers of blubber ready for the winter, and that blubber keeps them warm so next we explored that by putting ice cubes in the washing up bowl ocean to see how cold polar seas can be. We then spread lard over the glove and bagged it for the girls to put their hand in again and see the effect of blubber on how much cold they could feel!

Good fun for the girls and simple and effective ways to demonstrate these things - the milk carton baleen whale ended up in the bath tub after a rinse out to be played with at bath time!!!

Learning About Oceans

When we were away at Easter at the coast, the girls were playing in the sea and Eve was talking about the Atlantic Ocean (I think she has picked it up from watching nature programmes). This week I pulled together a few things from various sources and we had our first attempt at lap booking!

I used pages from homeschoolfreestuff from their Ocean lapbook file, as well as pieces from myhomeschooleducation's Ocean lapbook which is based upon content from the Temperate Ocean pages of mbgnet. We made a spinning book with the names of the five main oceans in each section, a fan book with different creatures that were dependent upon the sea, and a layer book showing the three light zones.

We talked about what makes the ocean blue..... Eve's response was that it looked blue because it had blue bits in. Whilst not scientifically accurate as an explanation, I knew that she knew what she was talking about! We talked about how light that appears clear splits into it's different colours when seen through rain drops as in a rainbow. I then made the point about why we see an orange pencil as orange (it reflects the colours that make orange) and why we see grass as green (it reflects the colours that make up orange). This led to Eve stating that the sea looked blue because it reflected blue. Great!

We talked about waves, and to be able to see them when we weren't at the seaside we made up an ocean bottle following the instructions here. Eve tipped the bottle backwards and forwards and watched the waves rolling across the surface. She even made some breakers! We talked about the surface of the ocean (the oil) being the section that moved. To demonstrate we lined up five marbles then rolled another into the end of the line, and Eve observed that only the marble at the other end of the line moved. We then added some sequins to the ocean bottle and made waves again and we could see that the sequins stayed more or less where they were, without moving from one end of the bottle to the other. We finished up by talking about how the waves in the bottle were made (by us) and how the waves in the sea were made (by the wind). I reminded her about the wind turbines we had seen and how we had talked about how much energy the wind had, and how it could make really big waves.

When we talked about the midnight zone at the bottom of the Ocean, Eve was taken with the idea of bioluminescence. We watched some You Tube clips of bioluminescent jellyfish, then Eve painted some with fluorescent paints whilst looking at a page of google images of them.

There is a lot more that we could do with Oceans...... I think that I would like to be better organised next time...... much of this was done day to day and i think that I'd like a better balance of practical activities next time round..... it's all a leaning process!

Jack and the Beanstalk Growing Topic

We started by listening to Jack and the Beanstalk from the BBC site. We listened three times then the children came up with the main characters and props from the story. They decided that they needed Jack, his Mum, a cow, a man that Jack meets, A beanstalk, a giant, a goose and a golden egg. To make it instantaneous for them I challenged them to find them from the resources we have in the lounge. We ended up with:

• Jack, his mum and the man were 'wow' people.
• The Giant was a 'Bob the Builder' character.
• A cow and a goose from the farm.
• A rubber egg from the play kitchen.
• A green ribbon from the craft box for the beanstalk.
• Some french beans for the magic beans and a net bag to hold them in.

The older children loved re-telling the story with the props and told it over and over again, changing roles and voices each time..... I made sure the little ones were included by asking them questions or getting them to 'grow' the ribbon beanstalk or chop it down or shout 'fe fi fo fum' when the giant arrived!

After that we went outside and planted our own 'magic beans'....

As a twist on the traditional method of a jar and blotting paper employed to observe bean germination, we cut kitchen cloth to fit a ziploc bag, then ran a loose running stitch across it to hold it in place.  After dampening the cloth we laid three beans in each bag and left in a warm bright place to watch what happens!

I'm planning to get the children to measure their beans with string as they grow by cutting the string to the length of the plant and then gluing it to card as a visual measuring tool. We could also count the number of leaves and graph those too.

States of Matter - Solids, Liquids and Gases

This is Eve and I playing a 'states of matter' bingo game that I made up. She really got to grips with the three states and their basic properties doing this game. I made it as when we sorted the three states into groups (see the pictures below), Eve was calling solids 'hard' and gases 'oxygen' and I wanted her to get to grips with calling materials by their 'group name' and understanding the basic reason why they are grouped that way. She was quite happy today that gases are there all around us, that liquids flow and that solids stay in one form, even though some can be squashed like sponges.

Eve already played with different liquids last week when we made our own 'marvellous medicines' after seeing George's marvellous Medicine at the theatre. She commented during the activity on how some flow faster than the others and some are slower.

Eve considered the sponge for a long time; I asked her to think out loud and she said "well you use it with water and it's got bubbles in, but when you put it down it stays in one shape so it must be solid" I was impressed with her logical reasoning here! I put a candle in with the solids ready for when we look at materials changing state and we can heat the solid wax to melt it!

I had fun making up a wide range of cards to represent gases and the different ways they might be found, some eve recognised and others she considered for the first time. I used a wide range to set the scene for more detailed explorations of matter. Similarly when I made up the cards for the bingo, I used a picture of molten magma and of liquid mercury to seed the idea that usually 'hard' substances such as rock and metal can be liquid also!

And the surprise bonus of these activities? Solid, liquid and gas are all phonetically spelled so it provided a reading activity too!

Next up? Changing states..... we made some coloured water and filled an ice cube tray today and I asked Eve what she thought would happen when we put it in the freezer. she replied "it will freeze and then it will be a solid, not a liquid anymore! I love that my children love science as I love it too!

George's Marvellous Medicine.....

We went to see 'George's Marvellous Medicine' at the theatre this morning, adapted from the book of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was the first time that Eve had been to the cinema and she was enchanted with the whole set-up. She took so much pleasure from all the little details, and it was such a pleasure to take her.  Later this afternoon we made our own versions of George's Marvellous Medicine.

I set up a tray with cooking oil, salt, blue bath bubbles, washing up liquid, shaving foam, gylcerine, salt, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, oh and lots of colours of food colouring of course!

The girls had a glass, a glass bowl, a tiny shot glass, tiny spoons, a milk powder measure and a whisk each. They were incredibly careful about measuring out amounts of their chosen ingredients and then replacing the caps. In the picture above, Eve has added bicarbonate of soda to her mixture and is quite fascinated with the growth of her potion as she adds vinegar to it!

The mixtures all ended up a vivid yellowy green for some reason, despite the amount of red colouring that went in!! The girls made lots of observations about the viscosity of the liquids and how the materials combined, as well as the way they stirred into each other. They looked very closely and said what they thought was happening...... a good launch pad for some science experiments based on solutions and mixtures me thinks!

We did of course combine and freeze the bowls of 'medicine' for exploring another day!

Exploring Friction

I was inspired to make this activity after watching how interested the children are in rolling vehicles down slopes during their block play.  I wanted to extend this further with a science activity that could be returned to over time as understanding and knowledge of friction built up.

In the basket there are two chocks to place the planks against; two because I think the children might then explore how the angle of the planks (i.e. stacking two chocks) affects the movement of the vehicles.  There are also seven planks in all.  one is plain wood, one covered in a carpet sample that I begged from the local carpet fitters, one covered in rough sandpaper, one covered in plastic made from laminating coloured paper, one covered in wool from a jumper, one covered in bubble wrap and the last covered in textured wallpaper!  I chose these as they are a range of different materials and different textures and will challenge the children's assumptions about surfaces and textures.

To make this activity you will need:

• 7 planks of wood cut to the length that you require (offcuts from DIY will do nicely!)
• 6 different materials to fix to the planks (I left one as wood!)
• A glue gun and staple gun (tacks and a hammer would do also!)
• A stanley knife and heavy duty scissors.
• Sandpaper or an orbital/belt sander.
• Two wood 'chocks'.
• One or more small vehicles with freely moving wheels.
• A basket.

Preparation:

• Cut and sand the planks and chocks so that they are smooth to the touch.
• Cut the materials to shape by drawing around the planks and cutting out the sections marked. I had to use a stanley knife for the carpet and scissors for the rest. Leave an extra edge round the wool/fabric to fold under to prevent threads and runs!
• Fix them securely to the planks using the most suitable means - I hot glued the carpet and staple gunned the other materials.
• When dried and ready, arrange in the basket and add to a suitable section of materials in your learning area.... in a Montessori classroom this may be the cultural area but equally alongside the blocks is a valid place to encourage exploration and experimentation!

Introducing it to a child:

• Wait to see if the child/ren notice the basket, if they do and start to ask questions or explore then join them and explain that the planks are to roll the vehicles down and they can be propped up on the chocks (show them if you need to).
• Encourage the child to explore and use all of the planks, talk about what the surface feels like; introduce new descriptive vocabulary such as bumpy, rough, smooth, shiny, bobbly etc. 
• If you feel it is appropriate for that child, draw attention to the effect that the different textures have on the car; you could group the planks according to whether the vehicle goes fast or slow down them, then talk about why the child thinks that happens. Ask the child to predict what they think will happen for a particular plank if they have noticed that some are slower and dome are faster.
• Don't automatically correct the child if they propose an incorrect theory, but talk about it with them and explore why they think that - you might well be surprised at the logic behind something and it isn't always helpful to override that and give instruction on the 'correct' science behind friction.  At this stage it is important to nurture positive tendencies for scientific exploration and the child will eventually when they are older discover and learn all the theories of forces, for now wonder, questioning and testing are enough!

Just so you know what you're talking about....... friction is a force that affects all types of movement on earth. When two surfaces come into contact (here the surface and the vehicle wheels) there is friction between them - the greater the friction, the greater the grip between the surfaces and the more resistance to movement. A real-life example is flat-soled pumps versus ridge-soled walking shoes; on an icy path the ridge soled shoes have the greater friction and therefore resist movement and prevent you slipping!

Friday's Favourites!

This week I have learned how special it is to feel well and have vowed to appreciate it more when I am better!  One thing I have really noticed is how quickly the the general tidiness of my home slips when I am unwell and it drives me crackers...... I really need to devise some systems for dealing with clutter better so that it doesn't get like that when I am laid low!

My children have learned how to use my camera and they pinch it occasionally when I'm not looking.  When I upload the pictures there are these really funny child's-eye view of the world shots and they make me smile!  The best bit is that some of them are actually quite good, although not of very original subject matter they are centred and framed well..... they hold a lot of promise I think!!  As I loaded them up to choose which pictures I wanted to keep for the learning journals, I was thinking how daft of me to miss taking  a picture of the little one with the Makka Pakka toy she has brought every day this week; low and behold, one of the girls had taken one of her on my behalf!!!!!! I wonder if I could get them to write my observations too??  There are of course some pics just of their feet, but that's cool too!!

So my favourite posts from around the web this week:

• These pencil holders, some of you may not be comfortable letting the children use the drill but they could mark out where they want the holes to go and you could drill them, then the children could decorate them..... painting the correct colour for each pencil round the hole is lovely as the children will know which pencil goes where and will also know which one to look for!!
• I have recently discovered a new blog all about science with young children and love this post about science in the playground, you don't have to go through all the technical information with young children but it is good to know yourself why and how things happen.  for young children, you can just set up the learning experience with a basket of things to put down the slide for example!

Have a great weekend, Jenni xx

How do Plants Grow?

I am doing a Montessori Early Years Teaching Qualification and my latest assignment requires that I write a planning web for a topic before choosing one of the 'cultural activities' and doing it with the children.  As it is currently a 'hot topic' with the children here, I decided to plan for 'How do Plants Grow?'I thought of lots of things to extend children's knowledge about plants and their growth and decided to share them here as I'd like to do lots of them and post about them and then you will all know what I am talking about!  I have combined Montessori curriculum headings with EYFS to suit all interested parties!!

Literacy (Communication, Language and Literacy)

• Booklets or spinning books (i-dials) on the life cycles of seeds.
• Sequencing cards on stages of growth.
• Books and stories
• Language tray with initial sounds that relate to seeds and plants (b-bean, p-pot, c-compost, s-sun, w-water, g-grow, l-leaf)
• Word wall - new vocabulary relating

Mathematics (Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy)

• Measuring the plants as they grow.
• Ordering seeds and beans from largest to smallest.
• Making bird cake from seeds - following a recipe card.
• Volumes of compost in pots.
• Measuring rainfall.

Creative (Creative Development)

• Make bean collages.
• Sunflowers - Van Goch painting, pallet of colours mixed to match and paint sunflowers.
• Natural paints using mud, dandelions, other flowers, leaves.
• Maracas with dried beans/rainmakers.
• Music and Movement - growing as plants grow.
• Songs and poems about growing.

Activities of daily living (Physical Development - fine motor)

• Sorting beans.
• Transferring with tweezers or tongs.
• Spooning beans/seeds.
• Pouring dried beans and seeds.
• Matching seed packets to seeds.

Cultural (Knowledge and Understanding of the World)

• Cooking and tasting recipes from around the world that use beans.
• Biology - set up a wormery and put leftovers from the children's fruit into it.
• Botany - parts of a plant/ what parts of a plant do we eat?/ life cycle of a bean
• Science - what plants need to grow/ celery stalks and food colouring/ dark box for plant to grow to the light.
• Leaf shapes/types.

Sensorial (CD, PSRN)

• Paint colour swatches in green to match to leaves of plants as they grow.
• Matching herbs by their smell.
• Leaf skeletons in the nature basket.
• Matching shapes to plant related items - cone (pot) seed(ovoid) etc.

Although Montessori curricula don't specifically have a section for Personal, Social and Emotional Development, by the approach that Montessori setting take, PSED is supported through all other activities, so you can look for aspects of this as the children take part in activities, just as you would normally.  I'm hoping to post about these activities as we go along, and will link them back to this plan as I go to make it easier to find them.  I'm anticipating that we will spend all summer investigating the way things grow though, so don't be disappointed if it isn't all here in the next couple of weeks.... if you want more information about any of these activities now, please leave a comment and ask and i will do my best to help you out!

Making Paper with Children

We tried this out last week and it worked really well, the children were fascinated with the process and because it took time and we did it outside, they drifted in and out of the activity as it suited them.  One of the youngest at 18 months old stood still at the edge of the table with her chin on her hands and observed very closely as three children made thier paper sheets.  When it came to her turn, she knew the steps to take and did so well!  I had never seen her concentrate like that before.

To make your own paper you will need:

1. A picture frame with the glass, back and any sharp bits removed.
2. A pair of finely woven tights.
3. A rectangular washing up bowl or plastic storage box that will easily fit the frame you have.
4. A blender.
5. Scrap paper (a mix of different types of paper is great.... if you want to make coloured paper, use some tissue paper that bleeds its colour when wet!)
6. A bucket and spoon.
7. Dry sheets of newspaper cut slightly bigger than your frame.
8. A rolling pin.
9. A sponge.

Follow these steps:

1. Tear the paper into very small pieces about 2cm/2cm maximum, put them ina  bucket full of warm water, mix round and let them sit..... overnight is preferable but a few hours will do, just keep topped up with hot water from a kettle if you do it over a few hours.
2. Take two cups of the paper to one cup of the water and blend it in a food mixer until it is a pulp. If the blender is working very ahrd, add a bit more water.
3. Tip the half-blender-full of mix into the storage box/washing up bowl.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
5. Add 2 inches of water to the storage box/bowl and swirl it around until all of the pulp is suspended in the water.
6. Put the tights carefully over the frame, taking special acre that the corners do not snag. Tie a knot in each end close to the frame and cut the extra bits off.
7. Lower the frame into the mixed up pulp, and then gently and slowly lift it out of the box.

8. Lay a few pieces of newspaper over the top, place your hand flat in the middle, flip the frame over and lay it down on the newspaper.
9. Use the sponge to press over all of the frame (don't rub or you will wrinkle the paper!) until you have sponged away as much of the excess water as you can.

10. Slowly and gently peel up the frame and use your fingers to tease away from it any edges that stick.  this will leave the paper open side up on the newspaper.
11. Put a few more sheets on top and use the roling pin to squeeze more water out to be absorbed by the paper.
12. peel the newspaper up carefully, and leave the exposed paper to dry in the sun or in a warm place.  it will peel off its newpaper base when dry!

Experiment with different amounts of pulp, different types of paper to shred, essential oils to make scented paper, adding dired leaves and petals to the pulp, and see what you can create!

Extension ideas for sink and float

You can do all of these activities outside on a much larger, messier scale if you want to!

• Use all natural found materials - you could do this in a pond/stream as you are out and about also.
• Collect different types of 'boats' such as a metal jam jar lid, coffee lid, matchbox covered in tin foil etc and put a box of metal washers/nuts etc with it; see how many washers/nuts you can get into each boat before it sinks and talk about what happens. 
• You could use marbles with boats also, these are interesting as they roll around and can cause the boats to sink as they all gather on one side!
• Collect different shapes and sizes of leaves and very small pebbles and float a leaf, trying to put as many pebbles on as possible.
• Put a lump of plasticene or bees wax with a small bowl of warm water. When you drop the lump in it sinks, but if you warm it and fashion a small boat shape out of it, it will float!
• Have a collection of all different types of one object such as balls (tennis, golf, ping pong, marble etc) or spoons (metal, plastic, wooden, slotted).

Some books you may find useful to take this idea further:

• Making Things Float and Sink (Fun Science Projects)
• Float and Sink (First Step Forces and Motion)

Science in the Early Years - Sink or Float?

I have been planning to extend some of the Montessori cultural ideas into my setting for a while now and organised myself to do it last night!  The Montessori cultural curriculum has some lovely suggestions for science activities that early years children can learn from in a hands-on, child-led way, supporting their knowledge and understanding of the world, amongst other things.

To set up an activity for exploring objects that sink or float,  you need:

• A tray that will hold a glass bowl/vase (glass because you can see through it and observe the objects that have sunk); fill the bowl three quarters full of water. 
• Next to it you need a plastic tray, box or basket that holds eight small objects that vary in size and material. 
• Objects made from different materials; on the tray above I have a light plastic ball, a plastic dinosaur, a small pebble and a marble (inside the small copper pot on this picture), a cork, a piece of bark, a shell and a small copper pot.
• A cloth to dry the objects and their tray with afterwards.

You can also have a laminated piece of card or paper that has the words 'float' and 'sink' on it including a simple diagram of an object below the water line and on the waterline for non-readers.

I like to get the child to make a hypothesis about what will happen such as "Do you think the shell will float or sink?" - you could also ask why they think that, giving you an amazing insight into their reasoning and knowledge (see sustained shared thinking for more tips on asking questions open-ended questions!)

Some of the thinking that came out using this activity was:

• That the dinosaur looked bigger at the bottom of the water because the water reflects it.
• That the shell was nice and thin like the pot so it would float (it sank of course).
• If you drop the pot from a low height it would float but when you drop it from a high height it sinks because it fills with water and goes heavier then.

Not all of the thinking is scientifically accurate but the children are making close observations of the materials and what is happeneing and using creative thinking to apply that knowledge to the other objects.  By exploring this themselves and actually experiencing it, it has more value than being told or reading about it in a book.

Here there is an attempt to balance the dinosaur on the bark to make it float instead of sink. Good Thinking!!

To make this suitable for toddler/baby exploration, put the objects into a wide necked plastic bottle or tub and fill half full with water and screw the lid on tight.  Every way they turn this up, the floating objects wil float and the sinkers will sink!  Differentiation in a nutshell!!