"Ice, Ice, Toddler:" A Scientific Investigation

As you have seen, our class has been having a great time experimenting with ice. It all began when it started freezing outside in December and our children discovered the ice in the front yard. They seemed so thrilled with the cold, hard, smooth, slippery substance. They often found it in the bowls in the counter area that were sometimes filled with water or sand. Some days it was there, and some days it wasn't.

Where could it have come from? 

What connections could they make about when and where they found the ice?

We went on some buggy walks and noticed the ice in the Charles River. Again, I wondered about the connections they made about where it came from and what might have changed for it to be there. While there are many constants in their lives, there are always so many new and changing things as well. I imagine that our toddlers are pretty used to things being one way on one day and then a different way the next. 

How does consistency and inconsistency play a role in children's learning? 

When it became unseasonably warm and all of the ice melted, some of our children were still exclaiming, "Ice, ice!" as we got ready to go outside, but then there wouldn't be any when we got out. We decided that we could try to continue this interest in ice by offering it inside as part of a provocation in the morning.

I thought that it would be interesting to freeze a small object inside the ice so that we could have a reference for seeing how the ice changed. I put the small plastic penguins in water and put them in the freezer so they would be stuck inside the ice, and then they would emerge as the ice around them melted. We ended up keeping the elements of ice and penguins consistent as we changed other variables, such as the size of the containers in which we froze the ice and other materials to explore with. Harry was interested in lifting a large round piece of ice that had been formed in a bowl. How challenging it must have been to pick up such a heavy, slippery, and cold object! When it broke in half, he noticed that it looked like the moon! Theo discovered tiny bubbles in the water the melted ice produced, and we noticed they formed when we moved our hands around in it. Oscar paid close attention to the penguins in the ice and when we saw that one of their feet broke, he said, "Penguin. Foot. Break. Oh no." He also consistently proclaimed that the ice was yummy.

When cleaning up from the morning's ice provocation, we would save any pieces of ice that were still there so that we could take a look at them later in the day. We either put them in a bin inside the sensory table or in a bowl on the counter. Some children remembered in the afternoon that we put the ice away and pointed to the covered sensory table, saying, "Ice, ice!" One afternoon, when we went to look at the ice in the table, we discovered that there was only water in the bin and I wondered aloud where the ice may have gone. Oscar offered, "Slinky [Christina] ice table take!" He remembered that Christina had put the ice in the table, but thought that maybe she had taken it back out. So the concept of ice melting into water may not be there yet, but observing, noticing, remembering, and articulating are all skills they are working on. 

On another occasion, after exploring ice and penguin figures along with a video projection of real penguins, Adi saw a penguin sitting in a bowl on the counter and pointed up at it, saying "Penguin." I asked him if we should take it down to look at, and maybe he could tell Nate about what he did in Studio that morning with Theo, Anika, Emily, and Katie. He said yes, so the two of them had an opportunity to quietly explore the remainder of the earlier provocation. 

I saw so many deliberate actions from both Adi and Nate as they took turns dropping the penguin into the bowl of water. I think they were curious about the distinct "plink" sound the penguin hitting the edge of the bowl made, because the bowl was different from materials we usually have. I wonder how Adi and Nate felt about sharing the materials they were using. 

What do you see, think, and wonder about while watching this video?

What else do our children learn through these explorations? 

It has been fascinating to continue this investigation in the studio with video projections of penguins in the snow along with real snow and ice. I look forward to seeing where our investigation will take us next.

With love and wonder,

Amara

  

T1S Potluck! (and some throwbacks from IS Potluck 12.2015) Enjoy!

December 2015

February 2017

Thank you for sharing a beautiful evening with us!
With love,
ACE

New Frontiers: Crossing the Lawn to Collaborate with T1N!

While chatting with the T1N team at our annual Day of Learning in November, we learned that both classrooms have been exploring and wondering about many of the same topics! Just as our T1S children have been singing, “Row, row, row your boat…” and excitedly pointing up to the sky, exclaiming, “Moon!” T1N teachers and children have been building cardboard "boats", designing a big paper/recycled materials "moon", and taking River Walks.

As you all know, we have been lucky enough to collaborate with T1N over the past few weeks in hopes of broadening the curriculum of both classrooms and building new relationships.

Each time we meet up with T1N, I wonder what this means for the children of both classrooms, who are getting to know their similarly aged peers during these (brief, in comparison to their whole school day) encounters. While some are eager to engage with the other group, others are more reserved and hesitant, perhaps seeking a teacher’s support to help bridge a connection. What do the children think of the different teaching styles they might encounter? They are used to their own teachers and routines and rituals, but these things naturally vary by classroom. For example, while in T1S we set the table with our special tablecloths and talk with one another about our meals and perhaps tell stories, T1N has a ritual of reading a book together at the table during snack times (common in other classrooms too!). We each had a chance to participate in the other group's snacktime ritual when we had our morning "Snack Swap"! While I love the warmth and familiarity of our own classroom routine, I enjoyed reading Harold and the Purple Crayon in the T1N classroom that day. It is a favorite book among our group, and all the children became engaged with the story which includes a drawing of the moon!

We hope you enjoy some photos from our “snack swap,” River Walk, and studio visits!

Snack Swap

River Walk

Studying Moon and River Images in the Studio

Next Steps...

What are your thoughts about our two classrooms collaborating? What are you curious about? Has your child told you about meeting their counterparts from the other side of the center?

Do you have any suggestions for us to deepen our curricular threads and continue to develop these new relationships?

With care and appreciation,

Christina with Amara and Emily

Exploring Light in Studio

Harry, Geffen, Theo, and I walked into the dark studio, which had only a rope of lights and a light table on to see by. "Wow, wow, wow," Theo kept whispering. I loved feeling a sense of wonder alongside him and our two other friends. Theo and Harry went right to the light rope, where Theo manipulated the lights and Harry found transparent color paddles that showed up as red and green when held up to the light.

Geffen was immediately drawn to the light table, which Katie had set up with trays of salt and natural materials such as pine cones, sticks, and stones. Using their fingers, hands, and sticks, they moved the salt, creating lines of light in the tracks. I thought the effect looked really beautiful. 

Did this activity remind them of using our sand table? How did the texture and light make the experience different?

"Stick, stick!" Harry called out, holding up a stick. "Rock, rock!" He said, holding up a rock. He named the materials he used, and focused on using the stick to move the salt around in the tray. 

 

Theo picked up the salt between his fingers, transferring small pinches of it from the trays to the table beside them. I came over and watched with him as the tiny crystals of salt bounced up as they dropped. The quality of the crystals made them illuminated by the light as they bounced, so they looked like tiny lights moving up and down. 

                                     

                                     

After observing how Geffen, Harry, and Theo explored the materials on the light table in many different ways, I was curious to see how they would interact with the overhead projector. The projector was off, so they didn't really notice it until I went over and turned it on and began to pull out the different colors and shapes of acetate. There were also two prisms, which projected dark gray shapes onto the wall. I held one up to the light and pointed out the rainbow that showed up on the ceiling above us. "Rainbow, rainbow," they all repeated after me, as they looked up. I wondered if any of them had ever seen rainbows outside in nature before. 🌈

It seemed to take some time for them to notice the connection between the materials on the projector and the image on the wall. I think that the sheer size of the machine in comparison to them was part of the obstacle, but they are also probably not used to manipulating materials in front of them and looking in the distance to see how they react. The image projected on the wall was larger than life, and they went up and tried touching the shapes as I moved them around, but of course they could not grasp them because they were made of light.

At one point, as Harry was moving the colored acetate on the projector, and I was commenting on how he moved them, Geffen pointed to the projection on the wall and said, "move!" Then Geffen went over to the projector, stood up on the wooden step, and began to move the acetate around himself. As he moved it around, he looked up to see them moving on the wall as well. "Move," he said again, as he watched them move some more. I think he was making the connection that the way he moved them on the projector caused the images to move on the wall too. The optics behind this phenomenon may have been too complex for him to understand, but I think that he totally got the cause and effect, which was still pretty complicated due to the distance and perpendicularity of the projector and projection.

We have been planning some future provocations with projected images, and I am curious to see how those will go. I wonder what our children make of these images that they can hold and move in one place but not when they see them on the wall. Light can be really magical, and I love exploring it alongside them. 

With love and curiosity, 

Amara