Obstacle course

Two of the science standards the children were building up to working on were these:

1.  Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object

2.  Analyze data to determine if a design solution works as intended to change the speed or direction of an object with a push or a pull.

So I let the children know they were going to participate in a small obstacle course.  The plan was to have a ball make it into Goal #1 first, and then Goal #2 next.  Instead of using their hands to push the ball, they had to use three different "pushers."

We made predictions about the good and bad of each "pusher" before the children got to work using them.

Everyone got a turn to set up the obstacle course and try it three times- once with each "pusher."  The goal was to think about force and motion, while analyzing the effectiveness of the things that pushed.  To do this, the children worked through the obstacle course and then talk about it with a teacher, writing down their findings.  Here are some examples:

The mit was too big.  The paddle gave a little push.

The paddle was the best because it had more leverage.

And the general consensus?  The paddle was the best because it was easier to manipulate and caused the right amount of force.

Friction

What are these post-it notes about?  Check this blog entry!

Did you know...

and...

Just like before the children learned these facts through reading, discussing, and experimenting.  

Here is some of what we did:

• We rubbed our hands together.
• We watched things slow down.
• We rolled items down a ramp and saw which "floor" had the least amount of friction (because it went the farthest!)
• We leaned on things to show friction at our feet keeping us standing.
• We rolled and pushed things across the floor to see the amount of friction it created (see below)

car, ball, dice

Through all of this we learned... friction is a force that happens when things rub together or touch.  And it slows down movement.

Gravity

Did you know that...

This idea was brought to the children's attention through a bit of discussion, reading, and experimenting.  I first asked everyone what they knew about gravity.  Most children knew about it in the context of their world, but weren't thinking of it as a scientist yet.

We talked about how objects fall to Earth.  We talked about how everything has gravity, and only the really big objects (like planets or moons) have gravity we can feel.  We talked about what the world would be like without gravity.  We talked about how gravity feels different in different places.  We even did experiments to see how different things fall and why they fall that way.

Through all of this we learned.... Gravity is a force that pulls things toward Earth.

What is a force?

Did you know that...

and...

We declared these two facts "new learning" through experimenting, reading, and discussing.  I read non-fiction books about force and we pulled out facts.  We used those facts to talk about the ideas.  The children then saw those ideas in action through small experiments.

What did we do?  

• We rolled different sized balls to see how they moved and compared them.
• We watched and waited for things to move.  (The didn't unless a force happened!)
• We rolled things down a ramp.
• We changed the motion of rolling objects.
• We made moving objects collide.
• We sorted tools we use by pushing or pulling.

Stay tuned for the next "new learning" post-it!

Through all of this we learned that... force is a push or a pull and objects stay in place unless a force happens.

Force and Motion

Now that we are all scientists, I figured it was time to put our knowledge to use.  I gathered all the children together and showed them two words:

Force and Motion

I didn't preface these words with anything and let them know I wanted their first thoughts.  What did the words mean?  Where have they heard them?  I took their ideas and wrote them on post-it notes.  Nothing was wrong or right. We would get to that later on.

After getting our ideas on paper, I let the children know the plans.  I was going to keep the papers saved on the board for a few weeks while we learned more about those two words.  We were going to discuss them, read about them, plan and experiment about them.  This is what scientists do to learn more about ideas.  

Throughout all of this when a new fact was discovered, we were going to write it down.  When we finished experimenting/reading/planning/discovering, we were going to reflect and look at out first ideas.  THEN we would see what was a misconception.  

This is how the children get a chance to reflect.  They can literally see their organized learning on the classroom wall.  We will refer back to it weekly and add/move around more post-it notes.  I will keep you updated with the new learning and how we figured it out!