Sand Play and Scientists

I once read an article that captivated me. As I was reading it, all I could think of was the children in my classes over the years who play with sand. And I thought of all of the times we've had to defend the practice of play as well as playing in the sand throughout the years. This article, Riddles In The Sand was written in 1996. Maybe more research has been done on sand. Maybe scientists and physicists understand how sand works now, at least more than they did in 1996. But as I read it, I was reminded that children are scientists. Children are physicists. Children are engineers. Every day, across the world, children are involved in theorizing, in planning, in trying out theories, and in finding 'proof' for their discoveries.

I was captivated, am still captivated, by the article, by the medium of sand, and by the idea that children are scientists. That is the purpose of this blog post. I wanted to put pictures to the words. I wanted to give credence to children and their play. I wanted to show that just as physicists and engineers theorize and experiment with materials, the idea to experiment, to theorize, begins in childhood. It begins with play. 

Riddles in the Sand

Physicists completely understand a solitary grain of sand. Why, then, are they at a complete loss to explain a mere handful of the stuff? 

"That not even a physicist can explain why sand behaves the way it does seems astonishing. Sand is neither invisibly small nor impossibly distant; observing it requires neither particle accelerators nor orbiting telescopes. The interactions of grains of sand are entirely governed by the same Newtonian laws that describe the motion of a bouncing ball or the orbit of Earth about the sun. The odd behavior of a layer of sand bounced up and down on a tray should, in principle be entirely knowable and entirely predictable. Why, then, can't Behringer [the physicist mentioned in the article] simply take a bunch of equations describing the motion of all of the individual grains, put them in a very large computer, and wait--for years, if necessary--until it spits out a prediction?" (p 2/9)

"Because the language of physics does not contain a vocabulary for granularity, engineers must treat granular material as either a liquid or a solid. These approximations work most of the time, but occasionally they lead to disaster....when the grains come to rest against one another they form intricate, quasi-self-supporting structures. That is why adding more grains to the top of a silo often does not increase the pressure delivered to the bottom at all, but rather increases pressure outward agains the sides of the silo." (p 3/9)

"Engineers who design buildings and roads, on the other hand, assume that under stress the supporting (and granular) soil will behave like a deforming solid, much the way plastic does. Once again, this convenient approximation occasionally leads to disasters." (p. 3/9)

"...if engineers understood the physics of soil better, these disasters might have been avoided." (p. 3/9)

"If you really want to describe what sand is doing in any given situation, you have to know which modes are dominant and which sets of equations you'll need to employ.... (p. 7/9)

"You just have to recognize that not everything you do is going to shake loose major pieces of knowledge... But collectively, and on rare occasions, experiments will come along and make a significant impact. It's like looking at a distribution of avalanches- you have a lot of little ones and, every once in a while, a big one." (p. 9/9)

(*all notes are from the article Riddles in the Sand by Fred Guterl,  DiscoverMagazine.com November 01, 1996. http://discovermagazine.com/1996/nov/riddlesinthesand915 All pictures are mine)

Teaching Number Sense in Kindergarten

Kindergarten Number Sense Outcomes

1.1: count in a variety of ways

1.2: explore a variety of physical representations of numbers 1-10

1.3: count to determine the number in a group

1.4: create sets of a given number

1.5: show a given number as two parts concretely and name the two parts

1.6: determine which group has more, which has less, or which are equivalent

1.7: use symbols to represent numbers in a variety of meaningful ways

 While our understanding of number sense begins at birth, when we count our baby's fingers and toes out loud (1:1 correspondence), as Kindergarteners, we are still in the early learning stages of number sense. With this in mind, we attempt to make our learning as holistic and realistic as possible. So we sing songs, we use concrete objects. It's a very hands on, brain on, learning process, but one that will take us a long way in understanding numbers.

Teaching and reinforcing number sense in the classroom is always embedded into our daily routine. From singing songs, to predicting how many people are present and absent, to playing a game, to reading stories, to our "Countdown to 5/10" at the end of the day, we are constantly exposed to number sense. It's through these real life experiences that we truly begin to see that numbers do make sense in our everyday life. By using routines to reinforce number sense, we allow the students to make their own connections, and when they can make their own connections, the learning is more authentic. If it's through our life experiences that we learn, then how much more important is it that our teaching give our students life experience?

While singing songs like, "Farmer Brown Has 5 Green Apples" we use props, and we have a "Farmer Brown". Through this, we are reinforcing the idea of 'taking away', and we have real life examples right in front of us.

Usually, during the hockey playoffs, we will take all of the teams that have made it and we keep track of the wins and losses of each series.
Since, right now, it is baseball playoff time, and both my favourite team, the Chicago Cubs, and Canada's favourite team, the Toronto Blue Jays, are in the playoffs, I decided to keep track of each one's wins and losses. It helps that baseball playoffs go to 5 games since we are learning about numbers 1-5 right now.
Through this activity, we are reinforcing outcomes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to add a loss to both the Blue Jays and the Cubs. Hopefully, before the weekend is over, I'll be able to add some wins too!

I REALLY like science.

Last post was a bit of a downer. It certainly wasn't a good week that week, but I am glad to say that the next week made up for it. It seems like, as a class, we have all come so far- almost overnight! One more reason to love kindergarten. One week you are at the bottom of the garbage can emotionally, and the next week BOOM! you are noticing all of the wonderful things that are going on all around you.

This past Thursday, I was privileged to be a part of a group of like-minded educators concerned with environmental education in our classrooms. The educators in this group ranged from early childhood all the way through university. There were ECE's, kindergarten teachers, student teachers, high school teachers, alternative education teachers, and a university professor. We ran the gamut for education, and it was exciting to be there.
At the beginning of the meeting we were asked to bring in one "environmental artifact". As I thought about this, I realized how important science is to me in my classroom. I probably put more effort into my science area than many other areas. I truly enjoy the look of concentration on the students faces when they are working and investigating in the science area. I love the feeling of accomplishment they have when they are able to create designs in the sandbox just like an Andy Goldsworthy. I also love that much of our literacy outcomes can be met through science, technology, 'engineering', math, art (STEM, or STEAM)- because, you know, all that matters is literacy, right? (she says sarcastically...)

I wanted to share a few pictures with you, I hope you enjoy!

It's not a huge area, and you can't see it, but the block area is right next to the science centre, and art is adjacent as well. My goal was to have it all seemlessly flow into each other (except the art shelf goes up against the sand box).  

I want the science area to be one of personal and individual discovery. It is small, because I want it to be intimate. Too many people and we tend to lose the discovery feeling.

Because we live on an island, I wanted my sandbox to reflect our local beaches, so I have added sand from the beach, driftwood, local sandstone, shells, starfish, etc. to the area. I wanted them to be able to create in the classroom what they could create on the beach. I put up pictures from Andy Goldsworthy, some Stonehenge pictures as inspiration, as well as some pictures of their own creations. 

I am looking forward to the rest of the year as we will be moving into an Earth day/Environment/Farm (because not only do we live on an island, but farming is a large part of our economy) investigation. 

Did I say I really like science?

Ramps: To intervene or not? That is *always* the question!

In my classroom, one of the ways I try to engage our young learners is through investigation. I like to discover (through observation) a topic that the students are interested in, find ways to build learning around it, and help scaffold their learning. The key though, is to realize when the students need you to help scaffold their learning, and when they are able to do it themselves.

From the beginning of the school year, many of us have been fascinated by ramps and building ramps. At first, I thought that would make a wonderful project for us. However, as I continued to observe, I realized there really wasn’t anything else I could add to the discovery. The children, on a daily basis, have helped each other build their knowledge of ramps, and what ramps can do. As I spoke with the children, I learned that the children already knew a lot about ramps. They had already figured out which ramps made the cars go farther, faster, and how to build one with the proper incline for what they needed.

At first, our ramps started out being built from the floor.

We enjoyed pushing the cars over the ramps and bridges.

As time went on, the floor ramps became steeper, allowing for more force behind our vehicles.

Sometime, around a month ago, we discovered that if we lean the block against the bookshelf, we have a steeper ramp, which makes the cars go farther and faster.

Now, we have begun adding extra ramps, so the cars go fast AND jump.

The more we work on this, the more complex our ramps are becoming.

Through all of this, the students are learning not only about force and motion and gravity, but about problem solving. About team work. About trial and error. These are what we call "21 Century Skills." These are the skills we will need as we grow and mature, not only for school, but for life. 

So, I continue to reflect. Do I need to add myself into their "conversation"? Or is what I add only going to diminish the work already done. As I observe I notice that it is true what they say about learning: your peers really do teach and encourage you to learn more than your instructor does. So, for now,  I'll watch to see what I can learn. I will allow them to teach each other -and me.