Having a Ball!

This week, we started our new study, “Balls.”  To introduce our new study, I asked the students a question, “What’s inside the box?”  I had placed a ball into a box and had the boys and girls try and guess what was inside.  While they took turns shaking and smelling the box, I gave them some clues. What can you bounce?  What can you throw? The children guessed a ball.

One of our focus questions was, “What do we know about balls?”  Some of their answers were: They are round, you can bounce them, throw them, kick them, air is inside them and so on.  Another question I asked was, “Do all balls bounce?” We decided to do our own experiment by testing out different kinds of balls.  After each child made their prediction we tested the ball and discussed why it did or didn’t bounce.

In order for children to develop the knowledge needed for later formal learning, they need frequent practice with materials in play settings and adult-guided activities.  Some of the activities include meaningful discussions and applications. One of our activities is a guessing jar. The students had to guess if we had more or fewer than 10 balls in our jar.  We recorded our answers and counted to see how many balls were in the jar. There were 22. The boys and girls also noticed that there were 3 different colors, so we decided to classify and count them. Everyone had fun, but we were also learning.