Day 1 - Rivers

In Day 1 of our Mother Goose Time curriculum we learned about Rivers.  We started the day with an open ended question asking Lachlan, what do you know about rivers?  He simply said "I don't know." and really didn't want to talk any more about it.  I realize now that I haven't been so good at asking Lachlan open ended questions.  Mother Goose Time expresses how important this is to do and I am excited to build this skill with my little man.

We did a few different activities all involving the river theme.  The first one we did was to go out to the sand box and make a groove in the sand.  I love the word groove they had us use to teach this.  When water flows over the land it makes grooves and the water follows those grooves making a river.  So I went out and made a groove in the sand and had both the boys copy me.  Than I got out my handy creamer container and filled it with water.  I poured the water at the end of the grooves and we all watched as the water followed the groove.  Ta da, super cool and easy river lesson!

Couldn't pour and take a picture so this is the after picture.

After we were all done pouring the water the sand was pretty saturated.  I moved some of the water and sand to the corner to make a lake.  Then I added a little bit more water to the lake, as it overflowed the water spilled over the edge and formed it's own groove in the sand.  I was able to show Lachlan what the water had done.  This was so fun.  Of course my boys love playing in the sand but this just added a whole new learning element to it. 

This is Lachlan creating his own "river" from the lake.

Enjoying the wet sand.

Next we did this awesome river craft.  First you gave them a piece of paper and had them draw the two sides of the river as you discussed the term "riverbed".  Lachlan picked up his pen and drew a squiggly line on one side of the paper.  I thought, sweet, he's got this, until he started closing the line and turning it into a circle.  I told him that circles of water are lakes and helped guide him into make continuous lines to form a river.  Next we put glue on the riverbed and poured the sand that was provide over the glue.  Lastly we dropped the provided blue die tablet into the water to soak our paper towel in to create the river.

At first I was a little concerned how we were going to glue wet pieces of paper towel to the paper.  But it actually worked just fine and didn't make that much of a mess.  The more I thought about it, the more I loved the fact that they were experiencing the sense of something wet while we were constructing a river!  So perfect.

Lachlan loved the blue water.

Lucy's paper towel soaking in the water as she waited her turn.

Finished product.