Experimenting with sand and motion...

On Tuesday the children started experimenting with sand on the spinners... so I asked a few questions... what would happen if they patted the sand down, what would happen if they just piled it on and what would happen if they took the dry sand from inside the playhouses?
The children were eager to test all three out... and with great excitement. We then talked about why there were differences... and the theory the children came up with is that the wet sand is sand and water mixed together and is therefore heavier and does not fly off as easily.

Today we returned to the same playspace and we did some more experimenting - as you can see in the film, the children started to mix the sand types...

I also noticed a pattern forming on the ground by the sand spinning off, which gave me an idea about creating art. What would happen if we coloured the sand? I asked the children if they wanted to collect some sand to take back to the preschool so that we could colour it (with food colouring) and return tomorrow to test it out. The children were keen and collected three buckets of dry sand - and carried them all the way back to the preschool... some of the children having more determination to carry the buckets than others... but with teamwork the children managed to transport the buckets back to the preschool themselves (I was sort of excpecting that I would be asked to carry for at least part of the way...so really proud of them for managing the entire way).

We coloured the sand with red, green and yellow food colouring... the children were rather disappointed with the results of the yellow, as they felt there was not much of a change. But I feel they might see the difference more clearly tomorrow when we can compare it against the sand already there.
This will give the children access to five sand colours tomorrow to create some kind of spin art... dark sand, light sand, green, yellow and red.

So now I am eagerly awaiting tomorrow.