Jumble House Challenges, Learning for young children, nature, Outdoors

Why? Why are there more yellow flowers?

WHY? My daughter once asked me why there were more yellow flowers than white. To be honest I’d never even noticed! But, yes, she was right. When I looked around there were more yellow flowers. Why? I hadn’t a clue so I threw back the question! “I don’t know. Why do you think it is?” Young children are SO much better than us at answering their own difficult questions! Back came the answer, ‘Maybe it’s because the bees prefer yellow flowers?’ A pretty good hypothesis to start with. So from there we got into a conversation about what the bees were doing on the flowers and was it just bees or did other insects visit flowers and why? Then of course came an even more difficult question! “But how can we find out?” Well, by then it was getting rather near to tea time and my mind wasn’t really on bees and flowers. But daughter being very persistent would not let it go! To cut a long story short she decided to test out her colour theory by placing clear plastic dishes with a sugar solution on a selection of different coloured card. Then I got on with making the tea while she sat there like a statue counting how many insects visited the different coloured ‘flowers’! The result? Was her prediction correct? Try it and see!

Jumble House Learning for young children

The one with the glove!

A fun vinegar and Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda) experiment.

In the first part of the video Lizzie Witch works magic on a glove.

THIS IS THE LINK TO THE VIDEO

In the second part we show how this can be achieved without magic. In other words ‘clever science ‘.

There is also a simple explanation of the process which is an acid reaction.

So, with the help of an adult, children can produce the same results as Lizzie but …..is that enough? Well, in my opinion it isn’t! I think once they have repeated the experiment they need to investigate further. This is where the creative thinking comes in and that is so important!

So what can they do now?

Well, here are some suggestions:

  • What happens if you add less or more bicarb to the same amount of vinegar. Get them to predict what they think will happen before doing the experiment.
  • does changing the kind of vinegar change the results?
  • Can you use different thicknesses of gloves?
  • Can a balloon be blown up in this way.
Jumble House Children, Fun, Learning for young children, Travel, Travel with kids, Umbria

I Spy Trasimeno

I SPY TRASIMENO is a booklet I’ve compiled for families with small children visiting the area around Lake Trasimeno. It includes, Castiglione del Lago, Corciano, Passignano, SAN Feliciano, Isola Maggiore, Isola Polvese, Monte del Lago and SAN Savino.

It contains photographs of places and objects for children to find when visiting these different places and features my ‘Jumbles’ toys. The booklets are available from Tourist Information Offices and from Jumble House.