Preschoolers and Science

So for those of you who don't know, I teach preschool two days a week. Now, it's only four kids...and it's at our daycare...but it's great. One of the nice things is that since I actually have the kids all day, five days a week, we can start things in class that might take us longer than actual "class time." Most of these things involve our science experiments. Here is one that I thought I'd share with you all. We are learning about farm animals, and this ties in great with conversations about where food comes from. It is very easy, but super fun for the kids.

To start you will need:

whipping cream, a jar or container with lid, spoon, bread or crackers

Next:

add cream (we only used about half the carton) and spoon

Then:

Have kids shake-a shake-a (put back in fridge when gets warm)

And:

Repeat!! Do this until it becomes fairly solid (it won't be solid like you usually see...and it won't be yellow).

Finally:

Enjoy!!!

We tied this in by talking about how cows eat grass and hay, from this they make milk, from milk we get cream, and we made butter from that cream today!!! They were super excited, and everyone got a chance to shake the container. Here is one of the crafts we accompanied the "experiment" with:



Now try this with your kids:) I promise, they'll love it...and the butter's pretty good! (And isn't that craft cute?!)