Yesterday in my field placement my first graders went to the school gymnasium to do a science experiment relating and comparing different attributes of balls. Each child has a science partner; one member of the pair is the recorder and wears a black bracelet while the other member wears a white bracelet and is the messenger. The kids are too young to do in-depth experiments or to record date while doing the activity, so the jobs are really more to build teamwork and give the kids a sense of responsibility rather than for actually dividing work-both members of each pair really observe and try to remember whatever they can individually. I like the idea of “science buddies” for such a young age level, I think getting children used to doing experiments as well as giving them opportunities for interaction and building teamwork are extremely important, but I would try and have the kids actually be held responsible for their given jobs, rather than just labeling the jobs but not actually letting the two jobs serve any significance.
Before the activity, we discussed weight. Yesterday was a perfect example of the importance of assessing prior knowledge from your students before doing a lesson. My CT and I found that most of the students just barely understood the concept of weight, and didn’t know at all HOW to compare the weight of two objects. My CT was trying to get the students to mention a scale as a tool to compare weight measurements; she ultimately asked the kids if they had been to the doctor before and found that the majority in fact hadn’t. This is just one example of how important it is for teachers to know & understand their students, and teach to their level and understandings rather than to a predetermined level that seems “normal” at a certain grade-level. We also discussed bounciness and how it was classified, as well as ability for balls to roll.
For the activity, each pair sat facing each other with their feet touching to form a diamond shape. They were first given a rubber bouncy ball and told to drop the ball a few times from eye level, without force, and to observe the bounciness of the ball. They were also told to roll the ball back and forth a few times, and observe the weight and size of the ball. They then traded the rubber balls for larger poly-Styrofoam ball and did the same thing with that ball. We then went back to the classroom to record data.
The students were given worksheets with the following categories labeled: size, weight, bounciness, and ability to roll. There were two boxes below each category labeled “bigger” and “smaller”, “weighs more” and “weighs less”, “more bouncy” and “less bouncy”, and “rolls better” and “rolls not as well”. The rubber bouncy ball was labeled “1” and the poly-Styrofoam ball was labeled as “2”, and they had to fill in the boxes accordingly. This was a bit difficult for the kids, they seemed confused by the labeling of the balls as “1” and “2”, and it was difficult for them to remember the weight and ability to roll of the balls from the activity, even though during the activity my CT and I walked around and discussed each of these characteristics with each pair. I think this would have worked better if the kids had brought their worksheets into the gym and filled them out as they experimented with the two balls, but it went okay and the kids enjoyed science, which is important, and some kids were able to accurately compare the two balls without simply guessing. I think if the activity were improved a bit it could be successful at this grade level.