Levers

I decided to start with levers, because they honestly seemed the most fun. What's more fun than a catapult? (No, not a trebuchet. A catapult)

This is what I used to design my levers, courtesy of Pinterest.

I had to use a bit more tape on mine to get the spoons to stay put, but the basic design is the same: levers of three different lengths, propped up by a block that has been taped down. I put mine on the back of a white board so it could be portable. Instead of blocks, we used cotton balls, but that was mostly for safety--I have some rambunctious kiddos in my class!

All the students took turns with each lever and we wrote down our predictions and results.

Concepts Learned: The longer lever sent the cotton ball the farthest, and the more you pulled down on the lever, the farther the cotton ball would fly.

I was quite impressed with how quickly the students noticed these concepts!

I'm still looking for some way to properly document these activities for the students' portfolios, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. I always do.

Problems and Solutions

Problem: we share space. While the school where I work is not affiliated with any religion, we are housed within a church. Many of the rooms we use are shared space. My room is not supposed to be shared, but it may be used infrequently for various things. Therefore, we can't leave things set up for any length of time. How on Earth can we create a complicated machine, especially one in which the creation may span weeks? Answer: we can't.

Solution: baby steps. We will build one "contraption" at a time, make sure it works, document what we did and how, then tear it down.

Problem: where do we start? My students are extremely creative and smart, but they are only four and five years old. Their knowledge of engineering and machines is pretty limited. As is mine! I obtained my Master's in Early Childhood Education, but I spent 8 years as a music therapist, so I have a music degree--I'm definitely not an engineer. However, what my music therapy degree did prepare me for in this process is identifying what we want the end result to be, then working backwards to find where to start. I decided that the basics in this instance would be learning about simple machines.

Solution: We will start with levers, wheel and axles, conveyor belts, pulleys, and ramps.

Three cheers for determining step one!

What the Heck?

I teach preschool at a delightful little private school in Kentucky. It's an inclusive school, which means I have many students with special needs in my classroom who are learning alongside typically developing students. It's a model of learning that I personally believe in and love. It teaches tolerance, empathy, and patience. 

This will be about my classroom's journey toward building a Rube Goldberg Machine. 

What's a Rube Goldberg Machine? Great question! It's an overly complicated machine developed to complete a (usually) mundane task. 

This guy here is pretty fun...

I have one member in my class who showed up the first day completely in love and obsessed with a marble run. His love and joy became infectious and spread to the entire class. A member of the office staff at school decided to show a YouTube video of a Rube Goldberg machine and my class was mesmerized. She and I decided then that we had to make this happen! With 4 year olds. Hmm. 

This is that journey, and, hopefully, I will be able to post a completed video of our machine by May.