April showers bring May flowers and lots of big puddles too! One very wet morning our toddler friends were looking outside and noticed that all of that rainfall overnight had created lots of large puddles. So, once we were all dressed in our outdoor gear and muddy buddies our friends couldn’t wait to step outside and get busy exploring. You could see, hear and feel the excitement as they eagerly ran right for the puddles. Using their coordination and gross motor muscles, they made big stomping movements with their whole bodies which caused the puddles to splash up and all around them. Splash, splash, splash there was water everywhere! The educators brought out shovels, pails, pots, buckets and strainers for the toddlers to explore with as well. Using their fine motor skills, eye hand coordination and practicing their sharing skills they would scoop the muddy water with their shovels and fill up their buckets. “I got so much water in my bucket!” said Reid proudly. “Look its so full up to the very top!” “What are you going to do with all that water?” inquired the educator as she too stomped in the puddle. “I’m going to dump it over there” answered Reid as he pointed to the fence and began walking over to the other side of the playground with his bucket in hand. Dominic was also busy filling up his bucket when he stopped suddenly and using both his hands lifted it up almost over his head. “Oh my goodness your container looks so heavy. What are you going to do with your water?” she asked. “I going to dump it too!” he said excitedly and proceeded to dump the water out onto his rainboots. He then lifted the bucket over his head and said, “All gone. I dumped it!”. While playing in the puddles some of the toddlers noticed pinecones that were scattered on the ground so they decided to collect them all and include these natural materials into their play as well by adding them into their water filled containers. “I’m going to make some soup for my mommy” said Eva as she used her shovel to stir in her pinecones. “Me too, I like noodle soup, these are my noodles” said Reid as he picked them up and dropped them into his muddy soup broth. As they continued to scoop, fill, transfer and dump out their buckets and containers we talked about the concept of volume and capacity, and how smaller buckets and containers took less water to fill up to the very top but bigger buckets and containers needed more water to be full. This concept was demonstrated as the educators helped to fill up a variety of different sized containers and then carry them over to the fence to be dumped out. The smaller buckets we were able to transport and carry on our own, because they weren’t as heavy. But the larger buckets that contained more volumes of water, required two or more friends to help lift it up and carry it to where they wanted to dump it out. Ayla was trying to fill up the strainer but noticed that the water was leaking out. “What’s happening to the water Ayla?” asked the educator. Ayla lifted up her strainer and smiled as the water she had scooped inside of it was now draining out from the holes. “my bucket has holes in it” she answered. “This is called a strainer it has holes so that water can drain out. Would you prefer a bucket with no holes so that your water doesn’t leak out” offered the educator? “Yes please’ answered Ayla smiling as she accepted the bucket that the educator had offered. “Maddie is going to help me fill it up” she added as her friend knelt down next to the bucket and began scooping up the water and dumping it into Ayla’s bucket. “Great teamwork friends and nice sharing!” said the educators as we played, scooped, dumped and splashed in the large puddles.
