Month: August 2019

School doesn’t start for a couple weeks but I was able to work in a science lesson with my daughter and a few of her soon to be third grade friends. In this lesson we focused on a structured inquiry lesson where I gave the kids some everyday objects; water bottle, magnets, cylinder tube. The lesson began with me sharing about my tablet. My tablet is something important to me. I use for my job, for taking classes online, reading books and playing games and paying bills. I shared how the tablet was designed and built by engineerings, using technology and can be used for the same areas too. I than began reading the book, “June 29, 1999.” From there, the students had to think and then discuss how the objects I gave them are for used for science and how is science important to the object. I encouraged them to share out, they were a little shy and reserved at first so I changed my questions to guide them a little.

From there the students were to come up with an experiment using the everyday objects based on questions they had come up with. My daughter using a magnet asked, “how many object can one magnet pick up?” While trying out her questions she said, “its like the magnet isn’t following gravity any more” as she picked it with other metal objects off the table.

It was really interesting watching their minds work and and then to vocalize out their thoughts and findings. When my daughter used the word gravity I was happy to hear her use a scientific world and principle like that to describe what was happening here. Taking the steps through the structure inquiry lesson allowed the students to think deeply about the objects presented before them and how they are used for science. Giving students time to think and then the safe space to talk openly about their science thinking allows them to experience discovery and use words like “gravity.”