Critical Thinking Skills

Sensory Activity: Wheat Berries

Thumbnail image for Sensory Activity: Wheat Berries

Could your child spend hours sifting flour or scooping sand? Sensory activities like these can fully absorb the minds of young children as they test the limits of materials and build imaginary worlds through pouring, filling, and building. This sensory activity is so easy, it doesn’t require a lot of materials, and the process of exploring [...]

Read the full article →

Mining the Garage for Toys

Thumbnail image for Mining the Garage for Toys

Did you ever play with a Lite Brite? How about Star Wars Action figures? We dusted off some old favorites and have breathed new life into these throw-backs to my own childhood and beyond. Classic toys have a simplicity to them that can generate creative thinking. And although they may be old to us, when they’re new-to-kids they [...]

Read the full article →

Art Project: Overhead Projector

Thumbnail image for Art Project: Overhead Projector

My husband works at a university and the collector in me was overjoyed to discover that there’s a little-known department on campus that sells surplus property from departments that no longer need old projectors, desks, and reams of paper. I wandered into the dusty space about a year ago and walked out with something everyone [...]

Read the full article →

Egg Geodes Science Experiment

Thumbnail image for Egg Geodes Science Experiment

Today I’m excited to talk with you about a cool science experiment: egg geodes. Because children will engage in steps of the scientific method, this could easily be a great science fair project. I was inspired by these egg geodes that I spotted on Martha Stewart and then followed this recipe by Melissa Howard who blogs at Those [...]

Read the full article →

Make Your Own Egg Tempera Paint

Thumbnail image for Make Your Own Egg Tempera Paint

It’s Day #2 of Egg Week.  In case you’re just popping in, my talented friend Melissa over at The Chocolate Muffin Tree and I are posting unique egg-related activities or experiments each day this week. I’ve been interested in whipping up a batch of homemade egg tempera paint for a while, and being that it’s egg week and [...]

Read the full article →

Walking on Raw Eggs. Really.

Thumbnail image for Walking on Raw Eggs. Really.

It’s EGG WEEK on Tinkerlab and The Chocolate Muffin Tree. Melissa and I have come together to bring you a full week of egg activities and experiments that are easy enough to do today or good for bookmarking for a rainy spring day. When I saw this post about Walking on Eggs on Steve Spangler Science, I [...]

Read the full article →

Creative Ways to Spend a Sick Day

Thumbnail image for Creative Ways to Spend a Sick Day

How do you get through sick days? With Spring just around the corner, I thought that maybe maybe maybe we would be the lucky ones who made it through winter without getting sick. Wishful thinking! My oldest came down with a fever the other day and we’ve been holed up at home, gathering our energy [...]

Read the full article →

Are Black Markers Really Black? A Chromatography Lesson.

Thumbnail image for Are Black Markers Really Black? A Chromatography Lesson.

What color is black? Is it one color or many colors combined to “look black”? Black is the absence of all reflective colors, and when the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) are combined in just the right way, they give off the appearance of black. We set off to find out more about [...]

Read the full article →

Sensory Activity: Shredded Paper

Thumbnail image for Sensory Activity: Shredded Paper

If you’re afraid of a mess, I have to warn you up front that this is a messy one. But it’s not a dirty kind of mess and if you stick with me here, you might become a shredded paper convert like me. It all started innocently, and rather boring, enough. It was a bill-paying [...]

Read the full article →
UA-19454188-1