The Infants at RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Brigid have been using their senses in a variety of ways. Educator Lorie filled balloons with coloured water and sparkles and froze them. When presented to the group, the Infants first began to use their fingers to touch the cold surfaces and to help remove the balloons from the ice. A few were excited to use their whole hand to touch the cold temperature, while some cautiously poked at it with one finger. Educators used language such as "cold, frozen and slippery" to encourage vocabulary building and comprehension. They were offered water colour paint and brushes to add more colour to the ice. We noticed that the colour actually froze to the ice balls! The children began to try and stack the ice on top of each other, and laughed as they listened to the loud 'bang' sound as the balls tipped over. Together, we explored breaking the ice into different shapes and the water pooling at the bottom of the trays as it melted. We wonder what would happen if we use these ice balls outdoors and if we offered other materials to use alongside the ice balls such as mittens and mallets. How would our experience change? What learning would we see?
