As an early childhood teacher, I've made and explored all sorts of activities with children from 2-6. Depending on age, some of the activities were more appropriate for them, others not. But for your 6-year-old, all the recipes are suitable, but require supervision and assistance. Also, it's more fun to have a partner to explore the activities and share thoughts.
- Fill it with water in 7 glass tumblers at different heights and run your index finger around the rim of the glass. Challenge your kindergartner to make music to familiar tunes like Mary Had A Little Lamb or create his music. This project could open the gateway to learning how to read music or even learn how to play a real instrument like piano or guitar.
- Make Ice Cream in a Bag. Look it up online for a recipe. Talk about liquid and solids and the reaction of cold and salt. There's a great book about it written for young learners. (You could check it out from the library when COVID-19 is more stable). My kindergarten class did this in small groups, and some turned out well, others did not. If it doesn't have the same consistency as store-bought ice cream, ask him why. What ingredients need to be added? Or What needs to be done? For comparison and critical thinking: Make ice cream with an ice cream maker if you or a neighbor has one where you have to put ice cream container into the freezer for a specific time and rotate the ice cream maker for a long time. Explore different ways of making ice cream after the ice cream-in-a-bag recipe.
- Make a sensory bag with objects and guess what they are. (Explore touch sense)
- Explore olfactory sense. Make boxes or bottles with a cotton swab or liquid resembling food i.e., vanilla extract, essential oils, or real orange, lemon, or lime peels) Cover the exterior of the box or box or have the child close his eyes.
- Explore taste sense. Buy a stick of sugar cane and have him watch you try to cut it in smaller chunks. Then hand it to him and see if he can figure out how to taste the sugar inside the stick. (It took longer for me to prepare the stick of sugar cane that I didn't have a chance to show the students how to extract the sugar cane juice from the stick so many students didn't get to taste the sweetness---it was one of my favorite childhood treats in the summer in Hong Kong. Cool, refreshing, and sweet.
- Explore the vision with illusion images. Stare at a b/w striped object for one minute and then look at a blank wall and see what happens. Talk about it. Also, check out Ambiguous images. Two different images can be seen. Ask him which one he sees and trace the outline to demonstrate. Ask him if he can see another image even if you might not be able to see it.
- Make homemade playdough. There are many ways to make it; this link shows 6. Some are cold and some hot. Explore the pros and cons of making the cold and the hot versions. Explore with color using food coloring.
- Make homemade stickers. I think this recipe uses regular household ingredients. Talk about the chemical reaction.
- Make a volcano or a fun and easy bottle rocket or advanced bottle rocket using the same concept or recipe. Talk about how far it goes and ask how he can measure it. It doesn't have to be a formal ruler or measuring tape. It can be measured by how many feet by using his shoes or a string. After doing the rocket bottle launch, ask him how he could make a replica model of a volcano and make it erupt. (Do the volcano project after both of you have made playdough and the rocket launch. See if he could figure it out without looking online. It's an excellent way to be creative and uses critical thinking skills.
- Make Flubber. But it requires a lot of glue and a little bit of borax. There are borax substitutes too, but I can't remember what it is. It looks gross, but it has unusual chemical properties of solid and liquid depending on how you play with it in your hand.
- Make a big bubble wand using a dry-cleaning hanger and shape it by hand or pliers. Make bubbles using green liquid Dawn, water, and a little bit of glycerine (makes it more elastic). Or use a regular bubble wand. Do it outside when it's a bit cold, and bubbles suspend in the air longer. With a big wand, you can make it "run" with you like a kite effect.
- Check out other fun sensory recipes from the Ooey Gooey Lady.
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Ling Lee
Evanston IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2020 08:16 PM
From: ELIZABETH OJEBOR
Subject: Tutoring a kindergartner
Hi, I am tutoring a kindergarten student presently, we learn on brainpop, razkids, scholastic etc. Also, his school is starting online remote learning in the next 6 days, but he gets bored easily.
Can anyone help me with ideas on how to get the student more busy?