Here is some simple science that happened yesterday in my classroom:
I have this Discovery Toys ball run from when my son was younger. The kids really like hooking the road track up to it and watching how far they can get the balls to roll down it. The track is also from Discovery Toys (although I’m not sure they sell either of them anymore).
The kids began with the straight track and I asked them if they thought about measuring to see which ball had gone further (had to get some math in there too!!). We laid the ball along side the track next to where it had stopped:
We noticed that every other time the red/yellow ball would go the furthest and opposite of that, the purple ball would go the furthest. We never did figure out why, but the kids loved when I suggested that we make the track curved a little:
So we tried again and noticed that the balls were not rolling as far as they did on the straight track. Innocently, I asked why they thought that was happening. They stared at me for a few seconds…silence…they then stared at the track…silence. Then…(insert angelic noises here)…I think it’s because the curves slow it down! The ball can’t go as far because it’s sticking to the sides of the track as it rolls down and it takes a lot of time for it to do that. BINGO!
We then made the track into a circle. That wasn’t so exciting, but the kids had fun betting each other how far the ball would go. They then started experimenting with putting different things under the track and the ball run to make them lean different ways. I slowly backed away and watched as they suggested all kinds of ideas to each other and to listen to their conversations…
I ❤ science. 🙂