Check out what is happening in February at Loomis Community Preschool!

Drawers filled with pieces of fabric, ribbon, leather straps, buttons, bottle tops. Boxes filled with containers, bottles, plastic to go containers. A table situated with two hot glue guns. This is ReCreate.

If you are looking for something fun and cheap to do with your kids, you should visit ReCreate in Roseville.  ReCreate is an art studio that stands for something: More Art, Less Waste.  This art studio inspires intense creativity, because all you have is trash as your medium.  Who would have thought that so much could be created by all those things we throw away?

We recently visited ReCreate with our daughter and created a monkey pencil holder out of trash.

For $6 an hour, you can create with your kids. While older kids may be able to independently navigate around the studio, most preschoolers will need a little help coming up with ideas and putting it all together.  Check out their website for more information: http://www.recreate.org/

And if you can’t visit the art studio, consider saving some of your trash and inspiring your kids with this challenge: fill a bag with miscellaneous trash and ask them to create something with whatever is in the bag.  This could be a group challenge or a competition between siblings (who can create the coolest trash art sculpture?).

“Kids are intuitively scientific thinkers.  Our job is to encourage this natural process of thinking and learning.”  At our latest General Meeting, we welcomed speaker Sharon Farrell, who inspired us to find the scientific process in all aspects of the world around us and our little ones.  Preschoolers, especially, are consummate scientists: their insatiable curiosity makes them determined explorers; their sense of wonder about the world makes them astute observers; their fearlessness makes them creative experimenters.

At LCP, our little scientists are constantly using ALL five senses to explore their environment.  They determine and classify items by such qualities as color, size, shape, odor, texture, pattern, weight, pitch, frequency, and/or flavor.  They communicate their discoveries with one other, sharing their interesting observations, and captivating adults with their infectious enthusiasm!  Here, students are using tweezers to explore the finer details of a sunflower, and they appear to be pretty fascinated by their findings!

Our sharp little scientific thinkers are also experts at asking questions and manipulating their environment to change one variable at a time in order to answer their specific questions.  Here, they explored the intricacies of powdered paint on melting ice, discovering how the colors mixed, how the powdered paint became liquid as the ice melted, and why painting the ice made it disappear faster!

 Our teachers are invaluable facilitators in the scientific process, asking questions to help kids explain their observations, make predictions, and design their own experiments to test their ideas and come to new conclusions.  Some of our favorite guiding phrases include:

“What would happen if…”

“I wonder…”

“What do you think?”

“Let’s find out!”

“Let’s do the experiment!”

“Well…what happened?”

Ice castle creations are not only fun and beautiful, but are also an opportunity to investigate the effect of salt and liquid watercolor on ice.  This captivated look is the mark of a perceptive observer and true scientist!

 What happens when you mix white glue, borax, and water?  FLUBBER!  Mixing these ingredients, our LCP scientists investigated changes of state and matter.  They molded, stretched, bounced, and pushed the Flubber through baskets to see what physical changes would occur.  They also experimented with gelatin and watercolor-filled pipets.  They squeezed the watercolor into the gelatin and watched in awe as they saw how the color dispersed through the substance.

Our burgeoning scientists are also learning important safety rules about taking special care around sharp, hot, or otherwise potentially dangerous objects.

 LCP scientists really enjoy exploring the world outside, expressing their love and appreciation for nature.  On our nature hike, they used magnifying glasses to get a closer look at the wonderous outdoors.  They searched for bugs, found a spider, and experienced the changing temperatures and colors of Fall.  Their enthusiasm for the natural world encouraged them to ask questions, look for patterns, and communicate their observations.

One budding scientist noticed this leaf’s icy façade and, after attributing it to the works of the magical Jack Frost, he came to this insightful conclusion:  “I guess it was so cold that the dew musta froze!”

However, as Sharon reminded us, the scientific process is not limited to the Science Center and its activities!  The creative thinking skills required and fostered by science can be found in all areas of preschool!  Kids are excited every Monday to discover what new material fills the sensory tub.  Whether it may be colored rice, oatmeal and spices, or warm bubbles, our preschoolers find new and interesting ways to observe, interact, and experiment with the sensory substance each week.  They measure with cups and spoons, fill with funnels, mix with spoons, all while feeling with adept fingers and smelling with keen noses.

Each week also brings new playdough to investigate and manipulate, with its many colors and textures.  Our scientists experiment with mixing, rolling, cutting, forming, building, and hiding objects inside.  They make models to better understand how things work, creating smaller versions of real-life objects.

Scientific thinking has been linked to school success.  The ability to form logical connections between ideas, think critically, and use evidence to support conclusions are all very valuable skills.  It is our task as parents and teachers to encourage these, as well as the verbal and written communication skills required in the scientific process, so that our enthusiastic little scientists will become the BIG thinkers of tomorrow.

Did you know you can make soup from a stone?

With a little celery…

Some fresh carrots…

A few chopped potatoes…

Zucchini straight from the garden…

And a whole lot of imagination…

You just might believe that our class made soup from a stone.

If you are looking for an amazing day trip for the family, you have got to go to Berkeley, California to visit the Adventure Playground. While we are surrounded by cookie cutter playgrounds: slides, swings, monkey bars, climbing walls, bark, the Berkeley Adventure Playground is a reminder of what a playground would look like if kids designed them.  And at Berkeley Adventure Playground, the kids really do take part in creating the playground.

My husband and I recently took our 6 year old son for his birthday date to the Adventure Playground. We had read about it in the Travel section of the Sacramento Bee and knew that he would love it. It was an hour and 45 minute drive, but well worth it.

The play structures are made of old pieces of plywood, hammered together in a way that seems totally random and seems to lack all structural integrity.  There are tunnels to nowhere. These tunnels are all shapes and sizes. While at most typical suburbia parks, parents can easily chase their child through the structure, at this playground, there are holes and tunnels and rooms, that only children can squeeze into.

Everything looks weathered.  This may be because the playground is located on the marina. The wind and salt water may be the culprits of this weathering, but probably not. More likely, it is the constant painting and hammering that is taking place.

You enter the playground into a work area. Kids are painting, sawing, hammering, pulling nails, and creating with their parents. A ramshackle booth is set up with a young man behind a weathered countertop.  If you ask him for supplies, he will tell you you need to go on a scavenger hunt first to earn your tools. The child has to find nails, or pieces of trash, or wood splinters,  or even better, a Mr. Dangerous (a piece of wood with a nail sticking out). You may be saying to yourself, “What are these things doing on the playground?”  Yes. It is true. This playground is dangerous. And this is amazing. In a culture that protects our children from everything, there is something completely refreshing about entering a play area that is dangerous. It is as though we are saying to our kids, “I trust you.”

After scavenging for junk, the man at the counter exchanges the junk for tools. One tool at a time.  Then the child and parent are off to create.  Some parents hover. Some parents are more excited about the creation than the kid. Some parents have no idea what they are doing. But everyone is creating. The nails are cheap. The wood breaks often because it too is old and probably recycled.  The paint runs out. By the end of the day there was only brown left but the kids didn’t seem to mind and they just kept painting.

Some of these creations went home with the children, some were hung in trees, some were nailed to play structures and added as another component to the already random structure.

The children climb and play, and many stand in line for the zip line that ends in a pile of dirt.  The kids are actually dragged along this pile of dirt long enough that their faces are dirty, their clothes are dirty and they are smiling so big.

As I wandered around with my 6 year old, I was stunned and awestruck by so much that was going on.  This is a place of intense imagination. But what struck me the most was the young man behind the weathered counter passing out tools and paint.  As children asked him for supplies and told him their ideas, he just kept saying, “Go for it.”  How often do kids get to hear those three words? How often do we hear their ideas, and just accept them and support them?

It was probably a child who said, let’s take all this junk and turn it into a playground. And fortunately some adult in Berkeley, California was brave enough to hear that idea and say, “Go for it.” And magically old plywood, old surfboards, old fire hoses, and old tires were turned into a playground reminiscent of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

Before the rain comes, take a trip to the Berkeley Adventure Playground. Did I mention it is totally free? Seriously, go for it.

A “Climbing wall”

Wood used for building

Inside a play structure: old tires and fire hoses used for climbing and children’s graffiti on the walls

A play structure: How do I get inside?

Wooden creations hanging in a tree

Fire hoses used as balancing ropes and bridges

Not your typical slide structure. Not your typical playground.

Our month in Tot class was full of exploration. We read The Sunflower House and then explored our own sunflowers. We removed the seeds ourselves and then made forts of our own just like they did in the story.

We learned about farm animals and tractors and the tracks they could make with paint and then we went to see Farmer Doug at Horton’s and rode a tractor to see the animals. We chose our own pumpkins and then cut one open and roasted the seeds for snack time.

We especially enjoyed our rainbow fizz experiment that smelled good enough to eat.

Our Halloween celebration did not disappoint, we learned to go door to door and say please and thank you for our non-candy treats!