Thursday, January 22, 2009

Ducks: land, air or water? That is the question . . .


What do you think? Keep reading to see what my three year old decided!

I'm pretty sure most households will have all necessary materials to do this fun, easy, and somewhat thought provoking activity . . . if you and your kids really get to analyzing things!

Here's what you need: any small clear container (I happened to have baby food jars), lots of animals, index cards or scraps of paper, water and some dirt! Easy stuff to gather, huh?

Here's why you should do it: This activity will help your child classify the world around them and learn about animals and their habitats (or mode of travel if you wish)

First, place your containers at the top of a rug or towel (I ordered a rug just like what I had in my classroom because it is what I am "comfortable" with.) The reason you want to place items on a rug/mat is so that it will 1) define a work space and 2)keep things aligned and organized. I added a little blue food coloring to the water to jazz things up a bit! :)

I added these cards to introduce some language. I color coded the words to the jars for a "clue" to non-readers.
Here's Lawton with a shark . . . definitely lives and swims in the water!
Birds- they fly in the air, and so that is what we went with here. However, ducks swim in the water, fly in the air, and walk on land. Lawton decided to classify them in the "air" department - there are no wrong answers here in my opinion! :)
Here is the finished activity! Very fast, thought provoking, and best of all, there was some pretending and role playing with every animal! ha!

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