Thanks to a parent who encouraged his child to ask me to confirm or deny my story about the ice cores, I have now revealed the “truth.” The truth is that pretty close to every water molecule on the earth is the same one that was here thousands, even millions of years ago. So the frozen water molecules in the ice cores that the children studied could have, at some time in the history of the earth, been in Antarctica. Of course, that is not the whole truth. I hope your child will tell you the rest of the story.
Weather is a big part of the work that scientists do in Antarctica, so the kindergarteners have been learning about air pressure, a key element in predicting weather. I’ve been amazed by the students’ capacity to grasp this idea – you can’t see air, but it has weight, and we live at the bottom of a very deep ocean of air – it’s heavy! We started exploring this concept some weeks ago when we learned about “bunny boots,” and now we’re taking it to a new level.
Students spent this past week working in pairs to build barometers and calibrate them, or, find the baseline. This was very hard work physically, socially, and cognitively. Physically, building the barometer requires significant hand strength and dexterity. Socially, the work required partnering, and each pair approached the task differently. Some pairs got right to work, recognizing the different roles required to succeed, and then accepting and delegating as needed. Other pairs found this very difficult. For example, some pairs shared memories of negative experiences together, causing them to expect the worst of each other. In the end, everyone overcame their differences, and all but one pair succeeded in building a working barometer (that pair is very close, they’ll finish next class).
Cognitively, this was challenging in a few ways. First, the concept of an invisible gas putting unnoticed pressure on everything is akin to magic. Second, measuring changes in pressure require students to hold temporal understandings. Specifically, they have to remember that yesterday’s air pressure is inside the barometer and today’s pressure, outside the barometer, might be different. This is not easy for young children, and I was impressed when most students appeared to get it (the others are getting there). Finally, we are keeping track of changes in pressure along with other phenomena, to see if there is a correlation between pressure and observed weather. Students will be using a data table to keep track of their measurements and using math to discern differences. These are challenging concepts. Both classes successfully measured a baseline pressure as measured by their barometer, and one class has taken a second measurement.
In the coming weeks, we’ll spend a little time at the beginning of each class period to measure any changes in air pressure, and see if we can reliably predict the weather. Coming up, either icebergs or static electricity.
over photocopies of the x-rays showing the broken ulna and radius, tried on the different casts that had helped heal the arm, and asked many thoughtful questions about the incident and after-events.
That was not the only fascinating thing about it — the student also described how he and his family built it from a kit. We might need to see this one again because we couldn’t quite understand how those balls were able to march UP the stairs!
right angle and pressure of air from their mouths (or the wind) will produce a bubble, but sometimes it won’t, and sometimes we have a hard time finding that “just right” stream of air. Perseverence. Yes. Also, we mixed up a gallon of bubble solution and allowed the children to use it as they pleased. It was difficult not to say, “don’t pour it on the ground, then you won’t be able to make any more bubbles.” But doing so would have limited their learning in two ways. First, the obvious: if they run out of solution, that’s a much more powerful lesson than my warning them. Second, I have to ask myself, what if their goal is not to blow bubbles? What if they need to learn how to make a mud puddle, or a wild bubbly river, or…I don’t know what? The lesson about limited resources came when they did pour it on the ground and discovered the effects themselves. The lesson about mud puddles and bubbly rivers came when they watched the effects of their actions. This is the real work of preschool.
them from a different angle than usual, and providing a different view of colors and translucency/opacity. We had squooshy bags of colored oobleck to explore. The translucent magnatiles were also a big draw. The mathematical aspects of these tiles help students grasp relationships between angles, lines, and other dimensions. The light table also allows students to investigate color theory, by noticing the color changes that occur when tiles are place on top of each other. It was a very popular center, which led to the need for students to find ways of using a finite resource (the tiles) in ways that maximized mutual respect. That is the real work of preschool.
students worked to repair it. It’s constructed of wooden panels connected with short dowel pins and glue. So I gave them this pile of lumber and they set to figuring out how it was supposed to turn into a chair. It was difficult to resist giving them clues and ideas about how to proceed, but the real work of this was to work together, make some wrong guesses, and keep trying — how could I take that away by showing them how it was supposed to go? I did tell them to do a dry fit before gluing, that’s just good woodworking technique. I’ll try to get some new shots up on the protected picture page to illustrate. A few days later, a student noticed that our special day rocking chair had a loose tenon. Guess what he said we should do! 
By student request, we will be having a CRAZY HAIR DAY next week, on Monday. We thought we might have it sooner, but the students agreed that families might want some time to think about it and acquire any product they might want to use. It’s not tied to any curriculum (at least at this point), it’s just for fun.
