This month has been filled with hands-on learning experiences that encouraged our school-age children to explore, create, problem-solve, and have fun together. Throughout the year, we have noticed a growing interest in sensory play and STEM activities, so we intentionally planned experiences that connected with their current interests. For sensory play, the children enjoyed water-based activities, including our spooky ghost experiment where frozen shaving cream “ghosts” were placed into coloured, glittery water. The children watched with excitement as the ghosts slowly disappeared, describing the water as “foggy” and comparing the texture to a “wet marshmallow.”
These experiences provided meaningful opportunities for children to learn through curiosity, hands-on exploration, and play. Sensory activities supported the children in exploring different textures, colours, and changes while encouraging them to use descriptive language and share their observations.
During our STEM experiences, the children worked together to build their own giant marble tracks, experimenting with different-sized tubes and figuring out how to keep the marbles moving without getting stuck. We also challenged their thinking through a school-wide scavenger hunt, where the children worked as a team to solve riddles, follow clues, and search for hidden treasure.
The marble track encouraged problem-solving, critical thinking, persistence, and cooperation as children tested their ideas and made changes when something did not work. The scavenger hunt further supported communication, teamwork, memory, and reasoning as the children listened to one another and worked together to solve each clue. Most importantly, the children were highly engaged because the experiences reflected their interests and gave them opportunities to take an active role in their learning.
Moving forward, we will continue to build on the children’s interests by offering more open-ended sensory, STEM, and problem-solving experiences. We will provide opportunities for the children to experiment, make predictions, test their ideas, and work together on increasingly challenging projects. We will also continue introducing new challenges that encourage creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking while allowing the children to take the lead in their learning. By following their interests and creating hands-on experiences, we hope to continue making learning meaningful, exciting, and fun for our school-age friends.
