The reason we decided to take our one and only field trip to the Children's Museum was because they have an exhibit called "Balls and Tracks". Fortunately for us, our Trimester 2 Science unit is Balance and Motion. PERFECT FIT!!! So, the package included a 1 hour hands on class that let us explore with tracks and balls. The children were the engineers and they were given three challenges. For the first challenge, they worked in groups to try and form a track that would make a marble go the fastest it can go. Our second challenge was to make the ball roll the slowest possible. The children talked about how in order to make things move, you need a force. The children were asked, "When something goes up in the air, what force makes it come back down?" Our new student, Svahbu, answered proudly, "Gravity"! He was absolutely correct. They also learned that in order to make the marbles go up a hill, they need momentum. So is the force that makes things go down and momentum is the force that helps things go up. Our third challenge was to create a ramp that allowed the ball to go up a hill. This took some figuring out, but the kids really rose to the occasion and had a great time creating these ramps. Here are some pictures of each group working together to beat the challenge.
Thank you to all the parents who were able to come with us to the Museum. I hope everyone had a great time. I know the kids did. When we got back to school, I had the kids show me one thing they learned at the Museum. They could sketch, write me a letter, or explain with just words. They could choose the way they wanted to show me their learning! The field trip was a huge success.
Just a few corrections to your interesting posts: it's PHEW, and "allowed" - the words you used mean something else, so thought it would be best to let you know
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