Chip Bee Science Playdates
探险森林 EXPLORING our FOREST!
Fascinating Forests
As usual, we start with 10 minutes of free play at different stations until everyone arrives (with exciting and new post-Christmas toys!) Our book this week is 丛林里边 谁在叫 Cónglín lǐbian shéi zài jiào (Jungle Sounds), an interactive story exploring creatures and sounds of the jungle. We will then join in together dancing to 颜色儿歌合集 (The Colours Song) and practice naming our colours before we embark on our forest exploration (within the home garden).
Please ensure every child is accompanied by a guardian and wears clothes that can get dirty. Please also note that there are squirrels in the neighbourhood so we cannot guarantee against nuts being present. We don’t recommend joining if your child has a severe nut allergy.
Forest Jewelry
Each child received a bracelet of masking tape. They then go around the garden identifying different items in the forest and collecting trinkets to stick to their bracelets.
Learning objectives: Foster curiosity about trees, leaves, and flowers, and discover beauty in the natural world.
Words: 花 (huā) – flower, 石 (shí) – stone, 长 (cháng) – long, 雨 (yǔ) – rain, 土 (tǔ) – earth, soil, 园 (yuán) – garden, 叶子 (yè zi) – leaf, 种子 (zhǒng zi) – seed, 树枝 (shù zhī) – stick
Matching Leaves
We collect leaves from different plants and come back to sort them out. Which leaves are similar? How are the leaves different? We sort leaves into matching pairs and explain why they match.
Learning objectives: Compare and contrast various aspects of the leaves, such as shape, textures, size, and color. Identify patterns between different and similar leaves and describe similarities and differences. Fine motor skills of picking up leaves and arranging them in matches. Working together in a team to match all the leaves.
Words: 长 (cháng) – long, 短 (duǎn) – short, 小 (xiǎo) – small, 大 (dà) – big, 厚 (hòu) – thick, 薄 (báo) – thin, 绿 (lǜ) – green, 棕色 (zōng sè) – brown
Counting: Few and many
We look at the objects we collected in the forest and notice that we have lots of some and only one of others. We sort the objects by number and place them in groups of 1 to 5 on the corresponding number place on the mat.
Learning Objectives: Learning that some things are more common than others. Learning basic numbers (1-5), counting and sorting.
Words: 一 (yī) – one, 二 (èr) – two, 三 (sān) – three, 四 (sì) – four, 五 (wǔ) – five, 分类 (fēn lèi) – sort, 数数 (shǔ shù) – counting, 数字 (shù zì) – numbers
Your forest comes to life!
Each child picks a favourite object from their explorations. We create a little toy or puppet using this item from the forest. The characters come together to explain their different properties and how they can work together using their individual strengths.
Learning objectives: Children will develop an early understanding of different material properties such as height, stability, light and shade, and more. As they watch the characters collaborate to achieve their dreams, children will begin to grasp the concept of working together and the joy of shared accomplishments.
Words: 强壮 (qiáng zhuàng) – strong, 灵活 (líng huó) – flexible
软 (ruǎn) – soft, 硬 (yìng) – hard, 大 (dà) – big 小, (xiǎo) – small, 光滑 (guāng huá) – smooth, 粗糙 (cū cāo) – rough
Hidden Colours and Magic!
In our final segment, we explore how things change! We different things from the forest (seeds, pine needles, leaves, soil) and see what colour the water turns.
Learning objectives: While they won’t understand the intricacies of Ph levels at this age, children will be introduced to the idea that normal objects can hold magical secret properties and that they should be curious beyond first impressions. Also we see that different things can can interact and change, a foundational concept in chemistry.
Words: 变化 (biàn huà) – change, 蓝色 (lán sè) – blue, 紫色 (zǐ sè) – purple, 红色 (hóng sè) – red, 秘密 (mì mì) – secret