First official lesson: Deep vs. Shallow

Collin is 12 months old.

My first official home school preschool lesson was one I had been pretty excited to do. At this age, the real  learning comes from exploring, testing, and discovering. For this lesson, it was a beautiful day outside so I filled two pots of different sizes with water and put sand on the bottom of each. Collin had a great time exploring the difference between deep and shallow. 

"Really? I can play with your cooking pots?...Are you sure?"

"Well, if you insist."

It wasn't long before he was adding wood chips, grass, and more sand  from the sand box into the mix. 

We used buckets for pouring and other sand toys for general awesomeness.

And, of course, had to taste test.



My camera's battery died just as things were gettin' good. It turned out to be an anatomy lesson, as well, as  Collin began plunging his extremities into the pots. "Can you put your foot inside the water?" led to the locating of his foot and the adorably exuberant dive into the water. I demonstrated stomping my feet, and he followed suit and was delighted at the squish, squish, squishing. He liked to go from standing in the shallow pot to standing in the deep one, and occasionally stood with a foot in each one. So cute.

We had a fun afternoon being scientists in the yard. We tested what would sink and what would float, dropped a rock in the deep pot and fished it out over and over again, noticed the difference in the splashes things made when they were thrown in the deep and shallow pot. This was an incredibly fun lesson, and I foresee us doing it many times over the summer.