Force and Motion

Over the last few weeks, we've been doing a lot of exploring with force and motion. 

We started our exploration by watching some video examples of force and motion in action and then having a science talk following each video. During a science talk, we sit in a circle and instead of raising hands to talk, we take turns having a discussion about what we noticed. We make sure we are listening when others are speaking, and we are adding to one another's thoughts and ideas. We can respectfully agree or disagree, but we also want to share why that is! 

Here are the videos we watched:

After watching and discussing these videos, we got to explore with KEVA Planks, Marble Runs, blocks and cars, and different kinds of balls. 

The giraffes have used the KEVA Planks, blocks, and marble runs to make all sorts of things--parking garages, roads, tunnels, and even mini golf courses! 

On Thursday, after having time to explore these different materials, we were curious about which type of ball would roll the fastest. We made our predictions based on what we knew about the balls from our exploration, and then we put them to the test! 

We decided to test the balls on the slide since it was big enough for us to test all 5 balls at the same time.

Our judges at the bottom of the slide confirmed that the marble was the fastest! The wooden ball was second, followed by the ping pong ball, then the tennis ball, and the squishy ball was last. The giraffes felt like the marble and wooden ball were the fastest because they were heavy and smooth, and they thought the squishy ball was last because it kept sticking to the slide as it rolled. We thought it was pretty neat that both of the fastest balls had the highest number of votes when we made our predictions! 

We will continue with our exploration of force and motion in the weeks ahead, we can't wait to see where our thinking takes us!