This month in Preschool 2, the educators have been observing the children and their interests in building volcanoes. In the sandbox the children worked together to build the sand up and create a volcano. This sparked an idea in the educators. They came over and asked the children if they wanted to create their very own volcano from scratch. With excitement they all shouted YES! We started talking about how we could make a volcano. “With dirt” Cooper said, “with fire” Cruz said, “with paper” Sloane, Nika and Marty said. As the educators and children began their research they came across a tutorial that would guide them on how to make a volcano.
First, they had to collect all the materials for it. They needed a water bottle, flour, water and newspaper. We posted on our door and in our Digibot app in “Community” to see if any of our families had newspapers to donate. We had some families donate so we could begin. This was a great way for us to engage with our families. The children helped the educator combine the flour and water together to make a paste. After that, the began adding it to the water bottle to make the structure of our volcano. Once finished, we had to wait for it to dry.
Second, we had to paint it. We asked the children what colour they would like our volcano to be. “Brown” majority of the group shouted. We looked up a variety of different volcanoes to see what colours they were. To no surprise they were brown as well. “Look there are rocks on it” a group of children said. We talked about how we could add rocks to our volcano as well.
Finally, it was time to erupt our volcano. We asked what we could use to erupt it. The children looked at one another and began thinking. “Maybe water” Danielle said. “Maybe vinegar” Marty said. We collected baking soda, vinegar and food colouring. The group chose to use red food colouring as it resembled the colour of lava and fire. We brought our volcano outside in the sand box. The children covered the base with sand to make it look like it was apart of the sandbox. They also added the rocks around it and the dinosaurs from our classroom. The educators added in the baking soda, food colouring and then the vinegar. What did the volcano do next? ERUPT!
The children enjoyed exploring with the volcano with the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs tried to eat, walk and claw at the volcano. The children then continued to add sand to the volcano to make it taller and wider.
This experience allowed the children to be a part of the process in building a volcano. They understand that there were steps into building a volcano and demonstrated patience. Continuing their interest on volcanoes we will look into watching a video of a volcano erupting. Educating the children that volcanoes are still located in different parts of the world and not just when the dinosaurs roamed the earth!
