Teaching Kids About Textures

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Pam on behalf of Expert Village. I'm going to teach you how to bring home fundamentals learned at home. Sand and water has many uses within the classroom. They inspire children to work together, like constructing a sand castle, or chasing after bubbles, or washing things. These materials are actually documented as helping calm children down. It's kind of a known fact that water just helps relax you. They strengthen their small muscle skills when they mold wet sand and they scoop up water. They develop fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination, when they are using it outside. So like if you go to the beach, they?re going to develop this larger muscle skills. They make natural comparisons to science, with things that they see. Even though it is just in the water table and the toys are plastic. They're going to make natural comparisons to the real thing and things that they have learned through facts. They make observations, they engage in classification, and it also teaches them about things like again, density. Certain things will float, these animals that when you squeeze them, they fill up with water. They float. However, other things like these, these sink right to the bottom. They're going to wonder why some things sink, why some things float. That's where you come in. You can teach them, talk to them about it. Take them outside and blow bubbles with them. That's a way to entertain a kid for hours, is to blow bubbles. Offer different things for them to use. Kids don't care if it belongs in the water; they are still going to play with it. They'll have the lion attack the whale, it doesn't matter. They are going to again expand their vocabulary because they are learning new words, like shallow. The sand is grainy. These are words that they wouldn't get if they lived in Colorado. So this is a way to incorporate, if you don't live near the beach, to incorporate the sand and the water into your everyday observations."