Teachable Moments: Sand

While we were camping this weekend, we had so many teachable moments.

One of my favorites was when we were playing in the lake.
The kids love the sand.  So I sat down in the water and I picked up a handful of sand.
I had Butterfly touch the sand while there was still water in it. 
"How does that feel, Butterfly?", I asked.
"Soft!", said Butterfly.
After most of the water had come out of it I had Butterfly rub her hands together and asked her again, "How does that feel?".   And she replied,"Rough."
Then I asked her how the sand felt on her toes when she walked across it.  She said, "It feels squishy!" and then giggled her wonderful giggle.
I asked her, "Why do you think the sand feels different under the water and on the land?"  And being four she said, "I dunno!"

After Butterfly was done, I called Bee over.  I asked Bee the same questions.  How does it feel?  What color is it?  What does it feel like when you walk on it?  She said many of the same answers. 

I am so glad that I took that moment to talk to my kids.  To find out what and how they thought. 

Then we talked about the color.  We said it looks like it is brown.  But then we looked closer.  We saw that there were lots of colors making up that initial brown that we identified.  There was brown, black, and white.   Lots of things to learn.  All from a simple handful of sand.