Rhyming Prompt: December 24
I’ve loved staying here in your nice cozy home
But something I’ve noticed, whenever I roam,
Is that some creatures aren’t quite as lucky as this
And their habitats sometimes have gone quite amiss.
Let’s work together to fix up this scene
I know I’ll feel better when everything’s clean.
Download the prompts for December 21-24 here as a PDF or here as a Microsoft Word Document. You may have already printed these—I’m just reposting for convenience. I also wanted to post the next set of prompts extra early, just in case you’d like to plan ahead. Here they are for December 25-28 as a PDF and here as a Microsoft Word Document.
A closeup image of the prompt for December 24, nestled in a lit Christmas tree. It is printed on cream cardstock with a green border, and has a gold wax seal of a frog.
Other Materials:
Today I’ll be giving my kids this Toob of Penguins, but you could use any figures of animals that can get greasy.
Vegetable oil
Dish soap
Blue food coloring (optional)
Spoons
Cotton balls and/or white pompoms, q-tips, pipe cleaners, whatever you have on hand
A tray/bowl/tub that can get messy
Suggested Pose:
I’ve set Frantz out with all the materials for the day. The visual display will help them buy into the activity before it begins.
Frantz is sitting in our play tray. He’s surrounded by all our supplies—q-tips, cotton rounds, pompoms, pipe cleaners, vegetable oil and pitchers, detergent, a spoon, blue food coloring, and an array of small penguins. The prompt for the day is on his lap.
Activity:
This is an extremely streamlined version of much more elaborate STEM activities for older grades, which here becomes part sensory bin, part STEM lesson, and part messy play.
Fill your pan with enough water to cover the bottom. You might want to add blue food coloring, because it will make it easier to distinguish between the water and the oil.
Add your penguins or other marine creatures, and let them frolic and play for a bit.
Have your kids add in about 1/4 of vegetable oil, and see how it spreads everywhere.
Task your kids with cleaning up the oil spill, so your creatures can have their nice clean habitat again. Let them use cotton balls, pompoms, spoons to dip the oil out, and whatever else they can think of.
Set up a washing station where they can use detergent and sponges or rags to wash their penguins clean.
Bonus: Have them clean up the mess of this activity when they’re done.
Rationale:
Let me start by saying that if you are thinking “No way will I do anything this messy on Christmas Eve,” let me take a moment to assure you that I am not a masochist. The reason I saved this activity for today is that it has previously bought me a solid three hours of productive, nearly uninterrupted work time. In my house that’s basically a reason to call the Vatican. My kids get so lost in that activity that I might actually be able to wrap some of their presents while they’re awake. If you can use some extra time today, this might be your ticket.
This will mostly just be chaotically fun messy play in this version, but it sets us up well for thinking about environmental empathy again. Even in this simplistic of a version, the kids can see how challenging it is to set things right once they’ve been adversely impacted, and that should help them ascertain the importance of preserving what we have. Your kids should feel great when they eventually restore the penguins’ habitat, especially once they see how challenging it is. If you’d like to make this activity more challenging for older kids, National Geographic has a wealth of resources.
Book Recommendation:
The obvious choice for today is Oil Spill! by Melvyn Berger and Paul Mirocha. It’s about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but it goes through the science of what leads up to an oil spill and what happens during cleanup. However, while this book is great, I find it to be a bit of a downer for this activity—I want to talk about cleanup today, and not about marine mammal deaths. If you are made of stronger stuff than me, you can watch a read aloud here. Instead, I’ll be taking the coward’s way out and reading a family favorite, Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger. You can watch a read aloud here.
An image of the cover of Tacky the Penguin, by Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger.