Play Learning Tuesday - And Cluck Cluck We Go

As much as I can, we'd always tie our homeschool sessions to either field trips, hands-on experiments or crafts. Last year, I bought a book by Jill Tomlinson as the play 'The Owl Who is Afraid of the Dark' was staged here in Singapore and from the homeschool front, we dissected some owl pellets.

The book that we bought has other stories in it, amongst which one was titled "The Hen Who Wouldn't Give Up". I particularly enjoyed the story - the hen in the story showed much perseverance and great spunk while her adventures filled some of our homeschool evenings with laughter. 

Dumpling asked a great deal of questions on eggs and the life cycle as well as how can a farmer tell if the eggs are fertilised and *gasp* what if the fertilised eggs were picked up by mistake and placed for sale in egg trays. LOL

So, we extended the session to watching some youtube videos (to learn about how to identify fertilized eggs) and some hands on play learning fun with an egg experiment and craft! 

We placed an egg in a container of vinegar and Dumpling witness a chemical reaction - bubbles started appearing on the shell which led to some interesting observations and discussions. 

Comparision of egg after 1/2 day and after 2 days...

Our shell-less egg! Dumpling poked, touched, peered through it and bounced it (it burst after we bounced from a height of about 6").

We also discussed how the egg looked bigger than the others in the same egg tray which were of about the same size as the original 'version' before it was soaked in vinegar. 

She noted that the egg has no more shell and what was left was a membrane (which I introduced using books and activity sheets). This was also when I introduced the concept of Osmosis - how water permeates through the membrane which is possible now because it is shell-less.

In addition to that, we also extended to craft and made our own Marionette! I saw this idea on a FB page and cannot for the life of me, remember where it was from! But it certainly inspired me to create something on our own! 

:: What you need:

1) Twigs

2) Some yarn

3) Toilet rolls! 

4) Duct Tape (I made some cuts, lengthwise into the toilet roll so that the flaps can over lap each other and then taped up the beak)

5) Pipe cleaners (for the neck and legs)

(The Hen below is "wingless" as the paint was still a bit damp and so we couldn't stick them on ;p) 

I hope that this gives you some ideas on more Homelearning Fun! :)