Exploring the Elements

An Overview:

The pre kindergarten class decided to keep their first project for the academic session as “elements of nature”. We have seen our children interact well with nature when we take them to the park. The educators have observed how they are pulled towards observing the leaves, the grass, the twigs and the flowers in the park. Seeing the enthusiasm of learning in the children, the educators planned to introduce to them the concept of “elements of nature” as a project which we continued for a week. The idea emerged from the 5 elements of nature, i.e, earth,air, water,fire, and space. We concentrated on just the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire for that week. The concept of space was covered separately in another week. We planned each concept on each day of the week, focussing on the various ways in which we can incorporate that element into everyday activities. The main goal for the week was to introduce the different elements of nature to the children.

Time: 20th June 2022 to 24th June 2022
Class: Pre Kindergarten
Facilitated by: Atreyee, Sayani, Srishti

DAY 1: EARTH

The Day in a Nutshell:
On earth day, we were mindful to incorporate clay in different forms in the activities. We painted clay cups (matkas), rolled soft clay into different patterns, made clay figurines with loose parts, planted moong sprouts, and played with clay during sensory. We used different forms of clay, from its soft texture to its hard texture and everything in between. 

Aha moment!
The children got very excited when we kept the trays filled with mud for their sensory activity. Most of them submerged their hands in the cool mud and enjoyed playing with it. They were so excited that it was clearly visible on their faces.

Educator’s Reflection: 
We introduced open-ended activities this week, like making the figurines with clay, hoping that children would interact with it extremely well. There was some resistance from the children in the beginning, then we facilitated a few steps to them and they gradually eased into the activity and started creating things on their own.We would aim to keep more open ended activities such as these in the future to improve their imaginative and creative skills. On the other hand, some of us were skeptical whether the children would be interested in getting messy with mud during sensory play, but to our utmost shock most of them enjoyed it. The ones who didn’t want to touch it with their hands, asked us for tools to manipulate it with. It was an interesting day to start this exploration week with.

DAY 2: WATER

The Day in a Nutshell:
On water day, we used ice and water for the activities. We painted with ice, made bubbles in water and also had a pool party. Children enjoyed coloring with ice, they kept doing sheets after sheets. Pool party was a major hit, children got into their swimming costumes and jumped into the pool and had a great time. They splashed water everywhere, jumped on water, and played with rubber ducks and balls.

Aha Moment!
During water play time, Srishti was facilitating  how to make bubbles by immersing the cup into the water and releasing it. Jaxay tried it himself, got extremely fascinated with the bubbles he could make and then he started explaining to the other children on that tub, how to do it.

Educator’s Reflection:
We knew how much our children enjoy playing with water, so we planned to keep a major chunk of the day as a pool day and kept it open ended. We provided certain toys and materials for them to play with and let them explore on their own We saw how they were using the cups to pour water from one cup to the other, they tried to drown the rubber ducks but they ended up floating back up, they splashed water on each other and some also used that water to plants nearby. It was fascinating to see so many various ways in which the children were exploring the water in the pool.

DAY 3: AIR

The Day in a Nutshell:
On air day, we tried to explore how air moves things, how we can feel the existence of air around us and how we use air to breathe. From making paper fans, blowing into balloons, making airplanes we tried to explore air around us. We also tried to explore how feather floats in the air and tried to move our body in the motion of the feather. Children exercised their fine motor skills to learn to make paper fans and paper planes. We also took turns to fly our paper planes.

Aha Moment!
Children enjoyed flying the paper planes that they made. They jumped with joy, laughed, and shouted when they saw the planes flying and reaching the other end of the class. They also ran around the class with the planes and tried to catch them with their hands.

Educator’s Reflection:
There were quite a few difficult fine motor activities that day, like paper fan making and paper plane making. Children were finding it difficult to make them in the beginning, but they kept working on it and kept asking for help from the educators. They were extremely resilient and did not give up easily. They also tried hard to blow the balloons with the straw. It was rewarding to see how much effort they were putting in to achieve success in the activities. 

DAY 4: FIRE

The Day in a Nutshell:
On fire day, we decided to introduce the concept of fire and how we usually handle it. In the beginning we started with finger painting fire with orange and yellow. Then the educators planned to show them two science experiments with fire. We tried to give them an experience of how to put out fire with water, by projecting a video of fire on the wall and giving them spray bottles with water to douse it off. We ended the class by showing them a video of how a fire truck and firemen douse fire in a building. 

Aha Moment!
While dousing the pretend fire with water, we could see how children got so engrossed in the activity that they kept pouring water on the wall. They acted as if the fire was real and they were trying their level best to douse it off. We could observe how they were using their limitless imagination to be a part of the group play and it was riveting to experience that. 

Educator’s Reflection:
During the showcase of the experiment, we could see how excitedly the children were waiting for us to do the experiments. A few of them were scared of fire, so an educator stayed with them, whereas the others enjoyed the experiments. Their eyes glowed in the sparkling light of the burning asbestos wool and they jumped with joy and excitement when they saw water going up the glass bottle. They still need some time before we can let them do these activities on their own, but it was interesting to see how engrossed they were.

DAY 5: NATURE

The Day in a Nutshell:
On nature day we concentrated on incorporating leaves, twigs and flowers in all their activities. They made crowns with leaves and flowers, crushed dried leaves to make art with it. They also went on a nature treasure hunt where they found items given to them in a list, in the park. They collected twigs, leaves (green and brown), pebbles and flowers from the park. They matched the list, searched for the items and collected them in their personal bags. In the end they came back to class and color sorted their treasure based on colors. We also showed them how much their sapling had grown in a week, and they were extremely proud of their plants and wanted to take them home.

Aha Moment!
Ruhani was the most excited in the park while collecting treasure. She loves collecting things and she enjoyed herself the most in this activity. Her bag was overflowing, and we had to give her another one to contain her treasures. She didn’t want to come back to class and wanted to keep collecting treasures from the park. 

Educator’s Reflection:
It was exhilarating to see children playing and collecting items from nature, exploring different textures of the nature through their senses. Nature as an environment can be a great teacher and we could see how just being in the park and exploring the different items, the children were learning and developing so much. When we planned the  treasure hunt activity in nature, we were  mostly concentrating on the cognitive development aspect  but we could see how it also enhanced their physical-motor skills, socio-emotional skills, executive skills and much more.