As I was packing up materials and readying the classrooms for summer storage I reflected back over the year and thought about the next. Developing an on-going inquiry (or overlapping inquiries because more than one class uses the space at this school) is foremost in my mind. I want to find some resources to share [...]
Collecting and analyzing data follows observational steps in science inquiry. To get inspired about expanding your students’ science experiences, read about the data collection by first and second grader teams who are National Elementary School Winners for Grades K-2 of the 2010-2011 Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge!
Spring migration brings additional bird species back to their nesting range and in numbers that children can easily observe. There have been plenty of American Robins pulling up worms from the rain-soaked ground. And the children discovered a Robin’s nest in the shrubby tree on the playground, not under our noses but just above them. Your [...]
Towards the end of the school year we often think of resources we can share with families to use over the summer. I like to describe my favorite outdoor areas to explore with young children with tips for what to take to make the experience last longer (snacks and hats) and be safe (know what [...]
In my neck of the woods we are enjoying a consistently cool Spring with cherry blossoms and daffodils lasting longer than in most years. The sugar snap peas that the children planted in a large pot outside are about 7cm tall and while we’ve seen Cabbage White butterflies around, we haven’t found any eggs on [...]
Also posted in Science 2.0CNN video: Kindergartners getting iPads Years ago, I followed closely the Maine schools 1-to-1 laptop project. I found it interesting on multiple levels, but also I was skeptical for several reasons. Not that I wasn’t in favor of laptops in the classroom or one-to-one initiatives, but for more because of ratios. Concerns of cost/benefit and training/outcomes [...]
Children in my preschool love to cook, and in some ways cooking is much like science learning. We feel the ingredients, measure them, follow a procedure to (hopefully) replicate the results of others, and make observations as we mix and apply heat. We get to eat our work, something we do not do in science [...]
Should science instruction before grade 3 be eliminated to make more time in the school day for Language Arts and Math instruction? That question has energized the NSTA General Science email list in recent days. It was raised by a science teacher asking for research on the question so he can guide a study committee [...]
The children whom I see once-a-week in an hour-long afternoon science enrichment class show growth in their exploration of building using ramps and blocks to create pathways for balls. These materials have been available each session for about four months. An hour once a week is not much time to explore a set of materials [...]
Also posted in Science 2.0In the video above, a third grader gets to use a rather striking example of 21st century technology to talk about some common topics in science, namely earthquakes and volcanoes. As was mentioned in this blog before, back at the 2009 National Science Teachers Association’s national conference, Arne Duncan mentioned in his keynote that, “You [...]
