Wind Week II

Wind Week II facilitated continued exploration of the movement of air in variety of activities!

Blowing bubbles at the water table remained a very popular pursuit!

Music and movement with kites was a true delight!

Discussing how paper airplanes create wind as they fly was very interesting, but flying them was the very best part.

 Making fans and using them to create wind that could move Pom Poms around and off  the surface of blocks took great focus and concentration! 

Perhaps the greatest fun and focus occurred when the children observed balloons.  We discussed how the process of my blowing up a balloon entails my taking air from the room, moving it into my lungs and then moving it into the balloon.  The balloon flies when the air quickly escapes from it, creating wind that pushes the balloon forward across the room!   

Many thanks to Emmett's mom, Andrea for coming in as our Guest Reader this week!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

This week let's take a closer look at Play as a great Methodology for teaching Science to young children!

As an Early Childhood Educator, it is so exciting to observe the children "doing" Science.  While our photos capture the essence of the children's activities, it cannot capture the excitement of the children and the energy they generate as they engage in Scientific exploration.  Once again, we began each day recalling our working definition:  Wind is air that is moving.  If the definition halted with these words, the children's understanding would no doubt be limited.  Experience gives meaning to the words.  Fun, active and engaging experiences add passion to the learning!  There is no doubt that the children have grasped a concrete understanding of wind through the many and varied activities that they have engaged in over the past two weeks.  More importantly, they are building on their perception that learning is fun, and they are ultimately developing a love of learning!

 

Have a fun and restful weekend!

Wind Week I

Wind Week I is the first of two Science-based weeks that provided the children with multiple opportunities daily to explore and experiment with the concept of Wind.  We began with a group conversation that yielded our working definition; wind is air that is moving.  Next, we began exploring our own wind power, and that of a hand made and electric fan.  Then, as the photos illustrate, we continued moving air and creating wind all week long!  

We blew our wind through a straw and predicted which objects we would be able to move off the block.

We used our wind power to move colored water, and in the process we created new colors!

We brought our wind theme to the art table as we made kites and created straw paintings with Brittani.

Perhaps the most fun of all was using our wind power to blow bubbles at the water table all week long!

Happy Birthday to Evan who turned four years old and celebrated with us on Monday!

Thank you to Evan's dad and his sister, Laurel for coming in as Guest Readers as part of the birthday celebration.

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

Let's take a closer look at the practice of "drawing on the children's prior knowledge" as a vehicle for building an understanding of new concepts.

Drawing on a child's prior knowledge is an excellent teaching technique for building an understanding of new concepts.  As our school year has progressed and we have moved through our various themes the children  have routinely used information to develop concepts.  This was very evident during our Doctor Theme as the children were able to both comprehend and explain in basic terms the function of their brain, heart and lungs.  This week, we "drew on that prior knowledge" as we began our conversation about "Wind".  As I mentioned, we began with the working definition; wind is air that is moving.  That definition was illustrated and made concrete to the children when they actually moved air and created wind in a variety of ways.  We began with our breath. I asked the children; "Who remembers what part of our body breathes air in and out?"  They were all able to draw on their prior knowledge and respond, "our lungs!"  I continued;  "Let's take some air from the room, put it in our lungs, then move it very fast out of our mouths and see if we can make some wind!"  The children were excited to do so.  The next step was to see if we could move things with the "wind power" created by our lungs and breath.  We began with pinwheels, and then moved on to a wide variety of other objects throughout the week.  Drawing on the children's prior knowledge to begin our study of wind, enabled them to transfer an understood concept about their lungs and use it to illustrate an abstract concept such as wind in very concrete way.  An exercise such as this not only gives evidence of learning, but it also expands upon and gives an important function to that learning.  Furthermore, it expands the depth, breadth and creativity of the children's higher level thinking skills! 

  

Have a fun and restful weekend!