Investigations

I was recently at the Early Childhood Summer Institute and was excited to find a couple of exhibitors set up sellign science materials. The first booth was called Fun Science Kits. She had numerous items that were very affordable, including petri dishes and tweezers. I was thrilled to find the petri dishes as I have been looking for an easy way to do investigations with my son.

I purchased a four pack of petri dishes and then we put something different in each dish. The first dish was filled with red sparkly pom poms and regular blue and white pom poms. We went with a 4th of July theme. Next we pulled out our tweezers and magnifying glasses and looked closely at the textures of the pom poms and used the tweezers to move them around.

The next dish was filled with dinosaur candy that goes on top of cakes or cupcakes. I purchased these sprinkles in the fall and still have not used them so at least he gets to look at them now. We looked closely at those and tried unsuccesfully to pick them up with tweezers but they are too small and thin to get a grip on them.

The third dish was contained a Petunia bloom. We studied the top, bottom and inside of the plant. He was just mesmerized with it as the bloom looked huge with the magnifying glasses.

The last dish contained a bllom from a plant called "Firecracker Plant". The blooms are very small, which was the opposite of the Petunia. We had to hold it carefully with tweezers in order to look inside the plant at the stamen and he was not nearly as impressed with this plant.

This was a fun activity for us and one of the few times that my son sat down quietly for an extended period of time. He enjoyed the magnifying glass and I am sure we will be using it more and more now.