Piagetian Conservation Tasks

One of my college classes is a "Child and Adolescent development for educators" class, and in the textbook, there was a section that showed examples of Piagetian Conservation tasks.  (conservation is the properties of an object).  
I remembered that we had done several of these "experiments" on Levi when my mom was taking a similar class, so I repeated them to compare.    These videos are a bit rough, but they are all done on the first try, no out takes!  

p.s. he is wearing the same shorts in both videos, I made them when he was 3, a little big to grow into, they are STILL a little big, they fit the same! 


Solid quantity - 2 balls of dough the same size/shape.  Roll one out, is it the same amount, or different? 

Solid Quantity, age 3

Solid Quantity, age 6

Liquid Quantity: Show 2 glasses with the same amount of water in each.  Pour one glass into a taller glass.  Is the amount of water the same?

Liquid Quantity age 3

Liquid Quantity age 6

Number:  Put out equal rows of objects.  Spread out one row  - does it have the same number, or different?  

Number, age 3

Number, age 6

Area:  Put out 2 pieces of paper, with 2 sets of squares covering the same area.  Spread out one set of squares - does it still cover the same area? 

Area, age 3

Area, age 6

Volume:  Put out 2 glasses with the same amount of water in each.  Drop a ball of clay in each, then remove.  Change the shape of one ball of clay, and drop them in again.  Did the water rise in the same way, or different?   (Note: at age 3 this experiment was done a little differently)

Volume, age 3

Volume age 6

It was very interesting to compare Levi at age 6 compared to age 3! 

Legoland!

We went to Legoland yesterday!   An online carseat friend sent us passes, so I surprised Levi with a day of fun.    Its a 2 hour drive from us, so I threw Levi in the car in the morning, it took him over an hour to even ask where on Earth we were heading.     I stealthily called the Kids Place Live radio station that we had been listening to all morning, and had Kenny Curtis announce that Levi was heading to Legoland.   He was so surprised!  It was great   

Our day, mostly in pictures:  

A new lego shirt I made, on my embroidery machine

 Lego guy, I think this is a lion from Chima or something.

 We went right to the back of the park, and ended up with almost no lines all day except for Coastersaurus and the Safari ride, which were still both only about 10min waits.   

Ford Car - we kept seeing kids trying to open the doors!

Driving School

Techno Cycles  - you pedal to go heigher

Roller Coaster car

Kid powered tower

Hero Factory

Batman and Robin

Pirate show, with very cool waterskiing

 Miranda Valentina, star of the waterskiing show

Pond with pumpkins and woodland creatures (made from lego)

Mini Land

St Augustine, see the real thing here

Levi in the stocks

More lego guys, making "bunny ears"

They have a neat greenhouse with actual growing things and some lego farming stuff.

A cow to milk - I was surprised that its not made of lego! 

 Levi and I with a giant lego pumpkin

 4D movie

Granny Apple Fries.  These are made from apples with cinnamon and sugar on them, and minus the whip cream, Levi could eat them.   I found a recipe that looks similar here. 

Gator Lego guy.  I think this is another Chima character. 

This skunk guy was one of Levi's favorites.  It was next to a bathroom and made loud fart sounds followed by "soooorrry"  

Knight by the dragon rollercoaster

Red and black creepy guy that Levi wanted a picture of. 

Some more mini land: 

Tiny orchestra, they even had lego violins!

Pizza guy, Buddy and Nai Nai are in Italy so I'm going to send them this picture.  

And for our last ride of the day, we went up in the Island in the Sky and got a view of the whole park  

It was a really nice day, we were able to go on all of the rides, and see 2 shows, no crowds and lots of fun! 

Frogs lapbook and unit study

At Levi's request, we learned all about frogs!   For this unit study we read a lot of books, did some art work, jumped like frogs, made a lapbook, did some math, and I even made him a new outfit to wear.  

We found these little guys in our backyard:

I made Levi a frog outfit.  He chose the fabrics for this one, the shirt is super bright "hurt your eyes" neon yellow.  The shorts and applique are a vintage paisley fabric that I think I got at a thrift store.   I wasn't too sure about the combination, but I think it works in the end.  He loves the result! 

Here are (some) of the books we read, the rest were from the library.   Also seen here is a frog puzzle, a model of a frogs internal organs, and a box of model frogs with cards to match.  

Here is the finished lapbook:

Cover

Inside

Inside

This is a frog lifecycle book we put together and he colored.  And a color-by-number multiplication I found.  

This is the artwork we made, I used the lesson plan from "Art Projects for Kids".  I really liked the idea of using a partial template for him to trace, and having him add his own feet to the frog.   We used lemon juice to make the spots on the frog, which were more subtle than I expected.   The frog drawing on the right is copy work from Draw, Write, Now.   The drawing technique for this one had you start by drawing a triangle, and then adding the frog detail on top.  I thought that was a good way of helping figure out placement for the different frog parts.   His handwriting on this is really nice too!

Check out my Frog Pintrest board for even more ideas!

Resources:

Book printable from Worksheet Place
Frog water color painting idea
Frog collage/painting art from Balancing Everything
multiplication color by number worksheet from education dot com
How to draw a frog
lapbook from Homeschool Share
"Froggy" books reading response sheets

Book List:

Frog by Michael Chinery
Why the Frog Has Big Eyes by Betsy Franco
From Tadpole to Frog by Wendy Pfeffer
All About Frogs by Jim Arnosky
Tadpoles and Frogs (Usborne Beginners)
(I Can Read About) Tadpoles and Frogs by Ellen Schultz
It's Mine by Leo Lionni
Frogs by Gail Gibbons
Frogs, Toads and Turtles (Take Along Guides) by Diane Burns
Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel