Primary Sensory Station About Insects For Fine Motor Skills and Science

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! This posting shares my heart's desires for ECE and Science. My main focus is setting up a sensory station for children to explore, learn about identifying and matching different insects with different ways to strengthen their fine motor skills.

Set up a garden or outdoor scene to create a context where children will find insects in nature, their natural setting. Small containers with jumbo tweezers aid for young children to pick up small clipart pics of various insects and to sort, all while developing their cognitive skills essential in math and science and their writing tool gripping.

Small river rocks, flower arranging dried grasses, and butterflies and dragonflies meant for wreaths and floral bouquets are additions to simulate the outdoors. Placemats and/or hand towels with nature designs can anchor the sensory explore station to a set spot on a table or low bookcase.

The worksheet copies will be the focus of their own post. It took about 30-45 minutes to create this worksheet and I formatted it to be multi-purpose to get the most for science, math, and fine motor growth. The primary strategy I thought of was cutting the worksheet apart into the strips/rows and asking children to grip and squeeze the single-hole puncher on the insect(s) that match the very first one in the row. Before they do that you might ask them to color only the ones that are exactly the same as that first pictured insect.

Maybe they need to follow a designated color code? Like purple for a butterfly. Yellow for a bee. Other insects I used include fly, water beetle/bug, and horned beetle.

Add a vase of real flowers if possible or maybe a small silk cluster. A small potted plant would be great addition to the explore station, too.

Depending on the number of children allowed at the sensory station, another pair of jumbo tweezers might be needed. On the worksheet I had 6 insects to identify but for the station and your usable space that may need to be limited to 3 or 4. Timing allowed to be at the station would be another consideration. Little ones don't like to be frustrated so the explore station shouldn't be too big or have too much to do. Be willing to make adjustments if you find out that they need fewer things to do for the time they have to share the space.

A big passion of mine in ECE is giving science equitable time and space within the classroom space and weekly schedule. Choosing a science theme book for your read out loud time is one way. Lots of science books about inventors, environments, space exploration, and reference in your classroom library are an important way to give science equity in your room. Picking a decorating theme that's about animals, plants, rockets, gears and wheels would be another addition to keep science in your environment.

I've used a general outdoors with a bit of camping broad theme in recent years, but I'm thinking my next classroom space will have a four season combined with birds décor theme to help organize the room. But I'll save those thoughts for a future posting.

Sensory stations like what I've pictured focuses primarily on the tactile, touch. Pinching the jumbo tweezers to pick up the small pictures would be one task for touch. Maybe one of the containers could be for holding the river rocks. That would give the children more pinching or gripping practice.

Using the hole-puncher to identify and match insects could be in a station right next to this one. The hole-puncher involves eye-hand coordination and gripping strength.

Get little ones during their primary years of early learning involved in hands-on approaches like a sensory explore station that develops their small motor skills and cognitive intelligence.

With a passion for ECE,
Becca S

Illinois certification endorsements:
Birth to Grade 3
FACS grades 6-12

and approval:
General science grades 5-8

Preschool Science and Motor Development with Bunny Inspired Activities for Indoor or Outdoor

Welcome to Becca's Heart for ECE blog! This post features a dual purposed activity to support science and motor development.

I'm Becca S, a teacher with both FACS degree/teaching experience as well as Elementary with Early Childhood degree. I have lead teacher daycare experience with 3-5+ year olds and private Christian kindergarten teaching  experience. After all those previous years, this winter and early spring, I applied and received ECE endorsement by ISBE (Illinois). Wahoo!! That's for Birth to Grade 3! I'm super excited about this. I took the professional exam and scored 278 out of 300 so I was stoked about that and then ISBE evaluated my transcripts and approved the endorsement. Yea!! Now that you know a little more about me, let's focus on the springtime idea for science and physical skills.

For the younger ECE children, providing a wide range of activities that can develop both fine and gross motor skills are very important. Fine or small motor are those finger gripping and pinching skills that help with holding a pencil, picking up tiny objects, and moving a paintbrush. Gross motor skills in this activity will mostly be arm movements like underhanded tosses. This activity can be used to let children share what they know about rabbits and bunnies OR the glass beads can be a color code for water and land features of the Earth's surface.

Earth Day option: Blue Beads are tossed at a distance after answering a question about water or oceans. A basic early content in science and particularly for Earth & Space Science is our planet Earth's surface is made of 2 parts: land and water. With older ECE children in 2nd grade and 3rd grade introducing them to the terms of continents and oceans will be cognitively more developmentally appropriate. With younger ECE children in the preschool to 1st grade range the Earth's surface should be referred to in terms of land and water. Each child can share where they've seen water: sink, bathtub/shower, garden hose, puddle, creek, pond, lake, river, and others.

Before sharing more of the educational components let's get this versatile location activity ready=

Set-up for this activity:

Have small tarp...will travel! If you have a large open indoor space you could use a tablecloth or shower curtain instead but a clean tarp could still be used inside.

This 5.5' x 7.5' was only about $2.50 with tax and coupon/sale at Harbor Freight Tools, so this was a great bargain multi-use purchase!

Below: Rabbit tray with green glass beads; read below for 2 options for usage:

Earth Day option: Green glass beads can represent land so before a child tosses a green glass bead she/he must share something found on land, a feature of the land portion of Earth. Children might suggest grass, dirt, hills, mountains, yard, and others.

Fine motor skill focus: As soon as I saw these Easter/spring rabbit deviled egg trays, I wasn't thinking food display but for the egg-shaped divots to hold marbles or glass beads or pom pons. At Dollar Tree was where I purchased these 2 trays and the flower arranging supply of decorative blue glass beads. Children can stand around the perimeter of the tarp. Remember the dimensions are small enough for this to be a good distance for this age group to get some underhanded and overhanded tossing practice (gross or large motor skills).

Bonus benefit: What is another HUGE important skill for writing and reading is the eye-hand coordination that the children will build when they are eyeing which tray to toss to and which divot might hold their glass bead!!! I LOVE a two-fer!!!

Animal focus: Science-wise, the teacher can guide questions not only about distance and range of motions but could have children take turns tossing AFTER they answer a science content question about rabbits. That would mean this would have to be a follow-up activity AFTER story time book(s) about bunnies. (Rabbits' babies are called bunnies. Rabbits can hop.)

Give each child in your group 5-10 opportunities before things get too wild or boring. When the trays and beads are collected back, have 1 final gross motor skill practice but this time for their legs by leading a bunny hop around the perimeter of the tarp!!!!

Oh what fun learning and acting like rabbits!  Be creative and resourceful. Look at household items differently and see how they can be used to help your little ones build physically and cognitively.

Teaching and learning in the USA heartland,
Becca S

BS Secondary w/ Home Economics proficiency
M. Ed. Elementary w/ ECE emphasis
IL endorsements: FACS grades 6-12, Birth to Grade 3/ECE
IL approval: General science grades 5-8

Constructivist science activities on ECE level with water concepts and nature table

photo from www.teachpreschool.org; retrieved online 5/4/2019


"Research and practice suggest that children have a much greater potential to learn than previously thought, and therefore early childhood settings should provide richer and more challenging environments for learning. In these environments, guided by skillful teachers, children’s experiences in the early years can have significant impact on their later learning. In addition, science may be a particularly important domain in early childhood, serving not only to build a basis for future scientific understanding but also to build important skills and attitudes for learning." from Karen Worth's article Fall 2010 "Science in Early Childhood Classrooms: Content and Process"

Science activities that allow children to explore and build their knowledge and skills is the premise for this post:

Examples:

1.  image from The Mailbox--2nd and 3rd grade level electronic newsletter--water depth and pressure experiment; place a soda 2 liter bottle with 2 holes taped over then filled with water and sealed into a tub kind of bin or pan; remove tapes at same time while asking the children to guess where the water will come from first; and ask them why it happened where it did

2. image from The Mailbox--2nd and 3rd grade level electronic newsletter--condensation phase of water cycle experiment; add water to the fill line on the cup; seal tight in the plastic bag; place in a window that gets good sunlight (solar heat); when will evaporation (and later--how much evaporates) take place...can children see the condensation?

3. the water station exploration activities photo is from www.nstacommunities.org; retrieved online 5/4/2019; children can explore gravity and flow; volume with different sizes of containers and funnels; even a sponge can be saturated and see how much can be squeezed out and measured

4. this next example is not to shame the website Education.com but to show how a worksheet can be the inspiration or springboard for a teacher to guide her/his children's curiosity 

Cut apart the images, laminate or place inside sealed clear plastic bags and display on a wall or tabletop where children can do sink and float comparisons. A bowling ball (pink item with 3 holes) is not practical for an indoor classroom environment so make that one a button; same for the log--impractical but a twig would be ideal; a small apple; a rubber duckie; key; and horseshoe magnet complete the list of items.

 A large clear storage tote filled about 1/3 with water should be enough to either suspend or not these objects.

 Place a large beach towel or shower liner underneath in case a child or two are exuberant with putting items into the water.

 Extend the exploratory time during the next couple of sessions by asking children for suggested classroom items to try. (crayon, pencil, wooden spool vs plastic spool; paper clips of different sizes; plastic lids; etc.)

My understanding and application of the constructivist theories in cognitive development is to allow children opportunities to explore and experiment with the teacher guiding and providing materials first. Then as youngsters are asking questions and showing desire to change, inspect, and analyze, vocabulary, facts, data, and skills can be shared later. For the above sink or float activity, gravity and buoyancy are large words for little ones. How can those be defined in basic terms?

Are daycare centers, preschools, and primary elementary grade classrooms still allowing exploratory learning?

Or has this disappeared under the 'umbrella' of testing and assessment?

Let me know in the comments on how early childhood science is approached.

From the USA heartland,

Becca S