This week we did an activity that involved using our sense of sight to observe a picture, one frame at a time, and our schema (our prior knowledge and experiences) to come up with an inference about what was going on. The kids really enjoyed the activity and are starting to see the difference between these two actions, which is key to reading AND science. Here is a picture of the image they were shown, 1/3 at a time. We had a lot of great discussions about our observations and inferences about the picture. Some noticed that the red prints were smaller and not spread out. They said that it didn't seem that the red printed animal noticed the green one because it didn't appear to start running. The kids inferred that the green footprints seemed to all of a sudden take off running as they observed the footprints got further apart. Here are the reactions the kids had to the third frame as it was revealed that after the footprints mixed together, only one set of footprints "walked" away from the second frame. Here are the reactions the kids had to the third frame as it was revealed that after the footprints mixed together, only one set of footprints "walked" away from the second frame. So, what did we learn about science in this lesson?
Students learned:
We also talked again about the difference between qualitative observations and quantitative observations: Qualitative= Qualities are described using words, such as brown, blonde, etc.
0 Comments
Today in Science, we started with a read aloud about Jane Goodall called The Watcher. This book is an excellent example of how one person's observations, careful science note-taking, and perseverance can have an impact on the world. We, of course, tied this in to our own Science Notebooks and the importance of observing the world around us. We talked about different types of observations and data that can be gathered in an investigation- qualitative and quantitative. QUALITative describes the QUALITIES of something using descriptive language. For example, the car is red, has tinted windows, a scratched bumper, etc. QUANTITative data describes QUANTITIES, or numbers, related to the object. For example, the car is 12 feet long, has 4 tires, is 6 feet tall, etc.
The kids then used their powers of observation to describe secret rocks that I gave to them. Each child received a different rock, though some were very similar to others. They then had to write qualitative and quantitative observations about their rocks (without others seeing it) and then we put all the rocks in a pile and played a rousing game of "Guess My Rock!" The kids had a great time playing, and we learned a lot of important lessons:
|
Archives
June 2019
Categories
All
|