Pattern blocks and Duplo

Pattern blocks are so much fun! I saw these and remembered them from my childhood. I had wooden ones and these are plastic but I couldn't believe that I'd not thought about them in 20 years then they appeared! 

I bought some for Hubs and she/ I have been having lots of fun. 

The shapes are standard size and colour and all fit together. The green triangles, red trapeziums and blue diamonds fit together to make the yellow hexagons. The orange squares and tan skinny diamonds don't make the hexagons but the size fits with all the other pieces. 

Duplo is a big favourite at the moment too, and I keep finding stray bits like this. I thought these were abandoned, but Chubs told me they were a train!

She's always so proud of everything she makes and often asks me to take a photo. 

Red Cabbage Indicator investigation

Red cabbage indicator - full of awesomely awesome awesomeness.

Crash course in acid base chemistry for those of you playing along at home:

Acids are substances that release hydrogen ions. Bases are substances that accept hydrogen ions. No need to worry about those last two sentences if they scare you, the investigation will still be awesome. Water soluble bases are called alkalis, so in everyday situations the terms 'base' and 'alkali' are pretty much interchangeable.

pH is a measure of how acidic or basic a substance is. pH 7 is neutral - by definition pure water is exactly pH 7. The more acidic it is, the lower the pH, so anything below 7 is acidic. The more basic it is, the higher the pH , so that's the above 7s.

pH scale facts:
- The numbers in pH actually mean something - there is a reason that 7 is neutral. It's not an arbitarily assigned number like many of the other scales that we use.
- Each increment means ten times - so something at pH 5 is ten times more acidic than a substance at pH 6. A substance with a pH of 4 is one hundered times more acidic than the pH 6 substance.
- The 'p' on pH means something, and so does the 'H'. The p is always lower case even when at the beginning of a sentence, and the H is always a capital.

An indicator is a special substance which changes colour depending on what pH it is. One of the coolest and easiest indicators - especially for little investigators - is red cabbage indicator. it has very distinct colour changes, is dead easy and you don't need to worry about harmful chemicals poisoning the kidlets.

Preparing the indicator

Get a red cabbage. You don't need much - I was making heaps for a large group, but if you're just doing it for a few people then a quarter of a cabbage will be heaps. Chubs wasn't keen on the whole cabbage, she wanted the pretty half one, so I had to swap the half for the whole when she wasn't looking. Hopefully you can avoid this - for less that one hundered kids then a quarter cabbage will be heaps.

Roughly chop

Chop the cabbage roughly. You want to allow the red colour to 'leech' out.

Cover with hot water

Bung it all in a saucepan and cover. Heat it for a while (about 10 - 15 minutes, no need to be fussy)

Soggy cabbage

When the colour has started to run out of the cabbage and it looks 'washed out' then it's done.  

Strain

Strain it out into a tub or bowl.

Yuck cabbage

It feels very wasteful, but I ditch the cabbage each time. I'm sure there's a recipe to do something with it, but it does seem a bit like a Dickensian work house. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

The investigation

One of the great things about this investigation is that you can just get in and play. It can be as structured or as relaxed as you want it to be. As long as you are using foodstuffs then it's totally fine for little hands and mouths. If using anything that might sting eyes then be careful, but I'm guessing if you're reading this then you had a toddler and you don't need me to tell you that.

The RCI will stain hands like beetroot, but it's not harmful and will wear off quickly. Clothes staining can be a bit hit and miss - but this is a good one for play clothes anyway. It can fizz a lot - so it's messy and wet, but easily cleaned. Best bet is to do it outside where you can just hose everything off.

Here's a few samples that I tried this afternoon. A bicarb solution (sodium carbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate, depending on which brand), vinegar and water is more than enough to get you going for a while. Milk, lemon juice, toothpaste suspension, apple juice, sugar solution, dishwashing liquid and anything else you can find make great things to test.

RCI will turn to different colours depending on the pH. Most items which are toddler safe are in pH 5 - 9, so green, blue/purple and pink will be the colours you see the most.


For this investigation, I added the RCI first - these are just RCI.

RCI only

I added some bicarb solution to one, more water to the next one, and then vinegar to the last one.

 

With samples

One of the great things about indicators, is that they aren't like dyes or paints. If you mix them together, then they will keep changing to the colour that the solution is. You can keep mixing the substances together and it won't end up as one brown murky mess like paint or food colouring would. For the pHs of normal foodstuffs, RCI will change between pink, blue, purple and green.

Vinegar and RCI in the bottom glass (pink)
About to add bicarb and RCI solution from the top

In the photo above, I added the bicarb solution from the previous photo to the vinegar one.

It fizzes like bicarb and vinegar normally do
Be careful if you're not expecting this.

 

Once the carbon dioxide has fizzed off, you can see that the RCI is still pink (so acidic) but it's less pink that it was. This is to be expected; the bicarb just neutralised it a bit. If you keep adding more bicarb (either solution or powder) then it will become more purple/blue and then green.

Keep mixing, keep trying things out, keep investigating. It's lots of fun! Make a table with your results and be very organised, or just keep playing. Lots of fun - enjoy.

Playdough

Chubs has been playing with playdough a lot recently. Things that she likes to do

- push it into the muffin trays
- have us roll it into a long tube and she says 'ssssssssss' (for snake)
- have us roll it into a sphere and she says 'ball'
- push
- make holes in it
- scrunch it into her hands
- have us make an imprint in it, and then poke it
- stir it in the saucepan
- poke it with a fork
- push her hands and feet into it to make a print
- playing and pushing it while we roll it and cut it into different shapes, and mix the colours

Toddler activities (20 months)

We have been 'intentionally playing' with Chubs a lot more recently. Now that the renovations are finished and her playroom/ bedroom is all ready, it's lots of fun to actually play with her. We've been getting her toys out and playing, and she's got room to move now.

Educational play that we've been doing

- Shaker bottles of coloured rice and of water and oil (motor, sensory, sound)

- Playdough (role play, sensory, fine motor)

- Counting. Chubs LOVES counting. She can count from one to ten and gets very upset if anyone interrupts her before she finishes. She tries to hold up her fingers but can't quite work out what to do with them. She also likes to point at the items in her counting book and go 'erh, erh, erh' each time she points at a new item. (numeracy, verbal, motor)

- Naming. Chubs loves to point at items and name then; both in real life and pictures. She's got a real language explosion going on at the moment and she's getting new words every day. (language)

- Alphabet. She is loving singing the alphabet song, which at the moment for her goes something like this: 'a, b, c, d, e, f, gggg, erh erh erh erh erhhh erh P! erh erh sssssssss T U V, er er er zeeeee. No no no no a b c , no no er er er ME! We've looked at some alphabet songs and phonics songs videos - she will very excitedly say 'a a apple' whenever she see ones. We've just started doing some flash card work and looking at the Graham Base book Animalia, as well as some other alphabet books that she has.

- Singing. You name it, we've sung it! Favourites at the moment are Incy Wincy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, and Five Little Monkeys, all with actions of course. Wiggles are a favourite at the moment, as well as Mother Goose Club and Super Simple Songs. (literacy, music, language)

- Stories. Bedtime stories had fallen by the wayside in the last little while, but have been reinstated (thank goodness). Favourites at the moment are When Grandma Came, The Biggest Bed in the World, Lucky Luke, The Going to Bed Book, Wombat Stew, Dear Zoo and Dear Santa (literacy, language, social)

- Colours. Naming colours is something that she's very much into and the moment. She probably gets it correct about 60% - 70% of the time for basic colours (red, blue, green, yellow and pink are the only ones that I think I've heard her say) (visual, verbal)

- Drawing. Washable felt pens are pretty much all Chubs is allowed at the moment. We constantly redirect her and I'm, sure that I say 'we draw on paper' a thousand times a day, but drawing on her face, the walls, the floor, her table and everything else is still a daily event. For this reason, it's washable felt pens only for the time being. She likes both colouring in, and drawing on a blank page. Stickers are a big win too. When we are with her, she likes using the whiteboard pens on a portable whiteboard, but since she still eats pens more often than she eats meals (sigh) that's a supervision-only activity. (fine motor, visual)

- Flash cards/memory/ matching cards. Chubs was given some Wiggles cards secondhand and she loves to match them. I pass her the cards one at a time. If it's new, she starts a new pile. If she has one down already, she places it on top of that pile. She gets it right almost all the time now, and is very proud of her self of course. She has some alphabet flash cards that she likes as well. (visual, letter recognition)

- Wooden blocks. Chubs was given a tub of wooden blocks for her first Christmas and they are one of the best presents ever! Towers are a stand out favourite at the moment, both building and knocking down. I tried doing some colour sorting with her but she wasn't interested so I let it go. As a high school maths teacher, I wish that kids would play with blocks more!  (mathematics, physics)

- Fisher Price Little People. Chubs started her collection at her first birthday party, got some more for Christmas and I found some second hand too. She likes to put the people in the rooms, on the swings and down the slide. She role plays and acts out lots of things with the figurines, including going down the slide saying 'weeeee'. (verbal, social)


Most of these are things that we would have been doing anyway, although perhaps a little more 'intentional'. I've been searching for ideas using terms like 'Montessori' and 'tot school' to find activities which are developmentally appropriate and fun. We certainly aren't pushing her. I'll looing up ideas, trying them, and she's taking the lead. To be honest, many of the ideas that I've found are just normal toddler 'play.' Many toddlers would be at different levels of developments - this is what seems to work for her.

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