Science@Play - Five Senses

Our second session of Science@Play, which was at the end of March, was on the Five Senses. The children had a sensory galore with ten stations for them to play, explore, create, and experiment. We couldn't cover all ten stations but I think we went to eight of them. 

The first station we went to had kinetic sand on a mat. I know the little girl is usually very hesitant of getting herself dirty so early into a playdate before she has warmed up. As I had expected, she didn't want to touch the sand at all. Oh well.

Moving along we went to a station that had colourful plastic eggs in an egg tray. The children could shake them to hear the contents and guess what were inside. Or they could shake them to match two eggs which had the same contents. Now that's a mess-free starter activity which suited her just fine.

 Shaking the eggs

 Colourful eggs in a tray

Next was a fun station for the children to explore with shaving gel, paint and glitter. After spraying some gel into a tray, they decorated it with different coloured sparkly glitter before deciding to explore further with their hands. Since she had warmed up I assumed, the little girl was ready to get her hands dirty.

 Adding some sparkle to their shaving gel

 Let's get messy!

After washing the gel and glitter off her hands, we went to the next station for some play with scented dough. She spent quite some time there playing together with her friend. And while she was busy with the dough and cookie cutters, I spent some time catching up with friends.

Playing with dough and cutters 

While she was busy with the dough, I looked around at other stations. There was a station with colourful yummy-looking jelly for the children to eat. They could even play with the jelly if they wanted to but the little girl wasn't interested in it. 

Colourful jelly to eat or play with

There was another station where the children could experiment with water in test tubes to hear the different pitch that they make when struck with a tuning fork. Only thing is, I didn't think they were given a tuning fork. A tuning fork usually has a shorter handle with longer prongs but what they got was something with a long handle and very short prongs. When I tried hitting a test tube of water with it, it just made a dull thud. Hmm.. There was a shaker and a xylophone too for the children to explore but the children were more than happy to just transfer water using the pipettes.

 Transferring water using transfer pipettes

I think this is how a tuning fork should look like

After some time, I decided to lure her away from the scented dough and asked if she wanted to make a rice shaker. She still held a piece of dough in her hand while filling her shaker with rice. Then I taped both ends of the shaker with craft paper and tape and we got for ourselves something to make music with.

Filling her shaker with rice

Next was a station to make a sensory board. She probably missed out one or two materials but she got nine different materials neatly taped onto her board.

Her sensory board

And while almost everyone else had opened up their lunch boxes and were munching away, the little girl was suddenly attracted to the water and pipettes. And so she sat there transferring water from a plastic cup into glass test tubes. She had used a transfer pipette just the day before at a playdate session with Growing with Colours so she was probably enjoying the new instrument. 

Though it might look rather mundane to be just transferring water, but I was grateful that the little girl could control the pipette well enough to guide it into the small opening of the test tube without spilling water. At times like this, I thanked Him for giving me such golden opportunities to watch my daughter learn and practise a new skill she had picked up. That very day, I asked my brother-in-law if he could get a few transfer pipettes for the little girl and he did! Now we use those pipettes mostly for watercolour art. 

Practising her new skill of transferring water with a pipette

I know we missed a few stations that day but it's okay. One of it was to make a paper tambourine and another to taste foods with different tastes. There's no point in rushing her through and I would rather she has ample time to enjoy each activity thoroughly before moving on. I remember going home really happy that day for a fulfilling noon with my daughter.