GARDENING CENTER

Materials: Wood Mulch, Plastic Pots, Silk Plants, Plastic Gardening Tools, Gardening Gloves, Gardening Aprons, Visors, (Many of these items can be found at 99¢ stores) Paper, Clipboards, Crayons/Pencils, Cash Register. 

Directions: Fill your sensory table with wood chips, put out plants and gardening tools. Make sure children wear gloves at all times at this center, as wood mulch may cause splinters. Children can plant the plants in the wood chips, pot them, and create a plant stand to sell to one another.

 Dave Scahill of Lakeshore Learning presented a workshop full of fun and easy science experiments for the early childhood classroom at the 2009 School Readiness fair. Pictured above is a "machine" for listening to vibrations, or sound waves. Wrap 2 plastic cups with 3 foot lengths of string, then tie the other ends to a baking rack. (The kind for cooling baked goods.) Run a wooden spoon along the rack while a child holds the cups to their ears. Make sure their body is not touching the rack. They will hear a very pleasant ringing sound made by the vibrating rack, and traveling up the strings to the cup amplifiers. Try it!