??? What were her favorite books?
??? What stuffed animal did she have? How was it named?
??? What happened in a hen house?
??? Why is she important?
Your child began writing about her by creating an introduction to what will become a biography of Jane Goodall.
What was the connection from electrical circuits to Jane Goodall? The children figured it out when we were talking about how she lived in a tent without electricity for such a long time. Today, she could go backpacking in the jungle, sit down, record the chimps on her iPad, and share her discoveries with the world - without electricity. How? :)
Our discussion led to the new invention of a few years ago - the solar backpack. We discussed how it is made, how the circuit would flow, and explored the parts of a solar panel. Three of their electrical kits from yesterday involved solar energy. Today when we put them outside to absorb the sun's energy, the helicopter was flying the entire time. They were surprised. It stopped when we brought it inside. They were surprised it stopped spinning after 3 hours in the sun. When we prepared for our first exploration to discover how to build squishy circuits, we predicted what would happen if we removed a battery pack and replaced it with a solar panel. Every child said it would light the LED light in our classroom. :)
The pictures below show the discovery approach to applying what has been learned about circuits to a new medium - conductive playdough made by a parent in our room (thank you!). Thank you all for not showing your child the entire Squishy Circuits video from last week's flipped classroom. Today, after exploring to discover ourselves, we watched the beginning 2 minutes and last 2 minutes I had chopped off. They were delighted to see that they discovered how to build it (not as easy as it looks ;) ) before they saw it. They were equally delighted when it was similar. Feel free to watch the entire episode if you'd like. Here is the link:
Sylvia's Mini Maker Show: Squishy Circuits
Where did she get the idea?
A TED talk of course. :)
Here's that link if you are interested.
AnnMarie Thomas: Squishy Circuits
We discussed how discovering for themselves before being told how to do something will increase learning (their guess), elicit connections (brain research), and improve memory for future retrieval of background knowledge (brain research). After all, learning is a verb. A verb is something that you do - an action. Verbs are called action verbs.
Science in action . . .
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