Balloons

To have fun with balloons and to introduce children to think about different types of gases.

Balloons equal party, fun and celebrations.  Balloons are great to use with kids and I have used balloons a lot in my STEAM storytimes to demonstrate different concepts.  This session can be used for a birthday theme storytime or for any storytime session that involves celebrations.

I couldn't resist posting this photo of my son on his first birthday!

Science concepts

To blow up a balloon we usually use air.  Air is made up of gas that goes into the balloon. There are different ways to make this gas.

Experiment: 

Blowing up balloons with different gases.
Equipment 
600 ml bottle ¼ filled with vinegar;
Bicarb soda, funnel;
2 balloons;
spoon.

Blow up a balloon and talk about putting gas into the balloon (that comes out of your lungs when you breath).  Tie up balloon.

In another balloon put 2 table spoons of bicard soda (using funnel)
Carefully attach the neck of the balloon to the bottle without the bicarb soda spilling into the bottle.
Hold the balloon upright so the bicarb soda goes into the bottle and watch the solution fizz and the resulting gas fill up the balloon.  When the reaction has finished tie up the balloon.
You can view the demonstration here

Explain to kids how there are different types of gas and the gas in this balloon is carbon dioxide which is heavier then the air around us, including the original balloon that was blown up.  Demonstrate this by holding both balloons and dropping them together and watch how the experiment balloon falls faster.   Let the children have fun dropping the balloons together too.
 

Book suggestions:

 

 

Bang went another balloon – Keith Faulkner
Pip and Posy: The big balloon – Axel Scheffler
Seven More Sleeps - Margret Wild and Donna Rawlings
Balloonia – Audrey Wood
Ella and the Baloons in the sky – Danny Appleby
Wibbly pig has 10 balloons – Mick Inkpen

Craft Suggestions:

Make a birthday card with coloured paper balloons of different sizes; or
Cut out a hot air balloon and colour/decorate; or
Buy balloons, blow them up and stick paper to make animals

Shadows

Introducing children to the science of shadows

Children are fascinated with shadows and sometimes a little afraid.  There are funny videos on the internet of children trying to run away from their shadows. Shadows can amuse children for hours as the make different shapes with their hands and bodies.  This session is a great session to explain to children how shadows work. 

Preparation: 

Make a shadow box from a cardboard box and tissue paper. Find the instructions here.
You will also need a strong torch or a desk lamp.
Consider making up your own story and making shadow puppets to do with the story

Science concepts/ experiments:

Use a torch and a tall object and demonstrate the following:

• Shadows are caused by an object blocking the light
• The place where the light can’t pass is called a shadow. Objects don't need to be solid to cast a shadow, but they have to be translucent. Show a shadow cast by tissue paper, some sheer fabric or a piece of plastic
• Shadows move because the light rays change direction. Show them how shadows change, move direction, get longer and shorter, by changing the position of a light source

Find out more about shadows and why they change here

Book suggestions:

Foggy foggy forest - Nick Sharratt
Smartycat: shadows - Jeanette Rowe
Shadow - Robie Harris
Goodnight gorilla - Peggy Rathmann (point out the shadows in the pictures)
At the zoo - Roger Priddy

OR: Make up your own story with shadow puppets and the shadow box

Craft suggestions:

Make shadow puppets using paper cut outs and taping them to sticks.
Let the children use the lightbox with their puppets.

Other useful resources: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/physical_processes/shadows/read/1/

Wind

To explain how wind can be measured and to have some fun blowing things around. 

There is nothing better than a lovely windy day that blows your hair and the leaves around everywhere.  It is difficult to explain to a child where the wind comes from.  It involves air and air pressure and it you would like to find out more you can do so here
However it is fun to see what types of things blow away and how we measure wind via the Beaufort scale

Science concepts/experiments:

Dancing the Beaufort Scale
I explained the Beaufort scale of wind strength using this handout.  I got all the children and adults to stand up to be trees in the garden and then we went though the Beaufort scale. The children were little trees and the adults large trees and as the scale went up parents and children made the corresponding movements. (Eg Moving fingers for leaves, arms for branches, whole body for swaying trees).  The children had lots of fun being trees.

Will it blow away? 
I gathered a few objects light and heavy and we experimented to see if they could be blown away using a hairdryer on low and then high settings. We used object such as cotton wool, leaves, pegs, stones, paperclips, fruit etc.

Ping pong ball balancing experiment
While I had the hairdryer out I thought that I would demonstrate the ping pong ball balancing experiment which is an experiment about balancing air pressure and gravity. All you need is a ping pong ball and a hairdryer. 
Turn the hairdryer on high and gently place the ball in the air stream.  What how it hovers in the air flow. This point is where the air pressure pushing up from the hairdryer 'wind' is equal to gravity.  You can find further explanations of this experiment here.

Book suggestions

 

 

The umbrella - Ingrid & Dieter Schubert.
Grandpa and Thomas and the green umbrella - Pamela Allen
A windy day - Sheila M. Bird
Flora's very windy day - by Jeanne Birdsall
The windy farm - Doug MacLeod & Craig Smith.
The windy day - Anna Milbourne
And red galoshes  - Glenda Millard
The wind blew - Pat Hutchins

Craft suggestions

Make your own kite.
Make a pinwheel.  Traditionally these use a split pin in the centre however we have judged them too dangerous for toddlers. Instead I used pipe cleaners to attach the cardboard pinwheel to a long icypole stick which is demonstrated here.   I also pre-punched the middle hole as I thought this would be too tricky for parents and kids.

Magnets

To allow children to explore the how magnets attract and repel.

I have fond memories of playing with magnets at my grandmother's house.  She had two dog figurines, one white and one black and they had magnets on the bottom.  No matter how I tried they would never join face to face.  When I tried to do it, one or the other would spin around and they would join nose to tail, it was the opposites that attract. It created hours of entertainment.

The science of magnets:

To introduce the idea of magnets first I read Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley by Aaron Blabbey which discusses how opposite friends attract. 
I then showed the children how magnets are similar explaining that magnets have 'poles' or sides one that is called 'positive' and one that is called 'negative'.  What happens with these sides is that the opposites attract - that they pull together.  Whereas if you put the two postive or the two negative sides together they would 'repel' or push away from each other. 

The Magnetic dog by Bruce Whatley is about a dog who is magnetic, in that he attracts food.  After the story we looked at magnets as magnetic and they can attract certain things like iron and aluminium.  We used the magnet to see what it could attract.  Things like paperclips, staples, pins but not things like apples, paper or fabric.  We also discovered that a strong magnet to pick up a whole chain of paperclips.

The last book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers is about objects getting stuck on a tree.  I made up a laminated model of the tree and the items that got stuck in the tree and put magnets on the back.  I used a magnetic board and put the tree on the board and the children had to remember the items that got stuck and one by one we stuck them to the tree. 

As with most of my demonstrations after the storytime session children came up and explored the magnets making them attract and repel and finding what items were attracted to the magnets.

Book suggestions:  

 

Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley – Aaron Blabbey
That magnetic dog – Bruce Whatley
Stuck – Charlotte Calder and Mark Jackson

Craft suggestions:

I decided to use magnetism in the craft so children made and cut our paper fish.  We then placed paperclips on them.  I had pre-made some fishing rods with a chopstick, wool and a magnet.  I then had a pretend pond and children could go fishing for their fish.  I showed parents how easy it was to make a fishing rod with a fridge magnet at home.

Snails and Slugs - locomotion

To introduce children to snails and how they move.

This is one of the first STEAM storytime sessions that I ran. I thought it would be interesting to bring in some snails for the children to watch.  I love seeing snails come out of their shells and then it looks like their eye stalks grow.
I decided to have a snail race with them an look out 4 feisty looking snails.  I placed them in the middle of a set of enlarging circles.  Whichever snail got to the outermost circle edge won.  I was thinking I would have plenty of time and prepared to read another story.  However, I must have had a 'turbo' snail because within 30 seconds one of my snails was at the finish line. I had a few slow pokes too, who hadn't even bothered to come out of their shells!

The children had seen how the snails moved so I started to discuss their silvery trails. 

Preparation:

Have a black piece of paper that you have allowed snails to slide across to reveal their silvery trail.

Science Concepts:

Slugs and snails have soft bodies so how do they slide across the ground with out getting hurt. 
They snail trails.  Show children the black paper with snail trails. This is 'slime' that snail produce when they move.
What does the snail slime do?
It make is easier to slide across hard surfaces like rocks and concrete.
Find more information about how snails move here

Experiment:

Snail slime is a bit like egg white.  Show children how egg white makes sandpaper less rough.

Equipment: 

2 pieces of sandpaper, egg white.
Get children to feel the sand paper, how rough it is, how hard it is to slide your finger along
Put some egg white onto the other piece of paper and get children to slide finger along. 
Get them to notice how much easier it is to slide their finger along. 
That is how snail slime works for snails

Book suggestions:

Snail brings the mail – Russell Punter
Slug need a hug - Jeanne Willis
Turtle and snail are friends - Stephen Michael King
Snails : why do they make slime trails? - Jeannette Rowe (Smarty cats series)
Snail and the Whale – Julia Donaldson
Norman the slug with the funny shell - Sue Hendra

Craft suggestions:

Snail colouring page and making a mosaic on the snails shell
Coiled paper snails
Paper plate snail

Extra learning:

I found the children wanted to interact with the snails and I encouraged their curiosity. I notice they 'pretend' played Mummies and Daddies with the snails.
This made the snails create bubbles/froth.  We discovered is what they do when they feel threatened.
Lots of children took snails home with then in egg cartons that I supplied.  This wasn’t planned, but one child asked and it cascaded from there.