One morning the preschoolers were talking about volcanoes. There was lots of interest in this so the children decided to make a volcano of their own in the sandpit. It took lots of help to scoop up the sand and pat it around to make it stay up.
The children wanted it to explode so they asked their teachers for some help. The teachers helped the children mix bi carb soda, powder paint (so we could see it) and then added vinegar. There was a “chemical reaction” and the children thought it was very exciting to see the mixture “bubble” and “go green”. After some discussion we discovered that the more vinegar we added the more “lava” there was and the more soda we added the bubblier it was.
After this excitement the preschoolers wanted to paint a volcano. The children discussed how they would paint a volcano and decided that volcanoes were brown and the lava was red and yellow. So they painted on a large piece of paper and glued the red and yellow cellophane onto the paper. When the teachers asked where we should put our volcano the preschoolers decided that it should go in “block corner with the dinosaurs so the dinosaurs have somewhere to live”.
The preschoolers had lots to say about volcanoes so we had a “big discussion” about what we knew and what we wanted to know about volcanoes. We learnt that the lava is very hot, and that the special word for when the volcano explodes is “erupt”.
How this experience links to EYLF outcomes:
Outcome 4. Children are confident and involved learners
a) Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.
b) Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry experimentation, hypothesizing, researching and investigating.
