Day Three

Day Three 9/11/19:

Review: What are these?
What are you going to do with them?
Challenge: Can you make the marble move? 

Students: “We can make it move.” Students started building. They had discovered the day before that the Lincoln log  and marble would move on the ramp. Each were building individually, but then they discovered that the ramps weren’t connected. So one asked “Hey guys... What can we do?” One student commented that “it was a process” to figure this out. They slide some of the ramps together. But they keep wanting to break the ramps apart and start over. This really challenges me as I want to encourage them to work together. It seems they start together, but them go off on their own.

They continue to just play with different designs when one of the boys discovers that he can make the marble go airborne using a wedge at the end. All the kids were fascinated by this and each wanted a turn with the marble. This took a great deal of cooperation with them taking turns.They kept having to chase the marble. They used the blocks to stop it, but it bounced off the track at times. One student (who did not speak English) noticed a basket on a cabinet in the hall. He held it up and gestured that he wanted to use it. I encouraged him to try it. The other students didn’t want him to bother the set up, but then discovered what he was doing. I encouraged them to let him test the idea and show them what he was thinking. He placed the basket at the end and was able to stop the marble from rolling away. It was a very exciting moment with lots of big fives.

The day before they had attempted turns but discovered it bounced off the track. They had not determined how to correct that. The students notice they had some bumpy spots where the marble would leave the track and not consistently roll each time. One thought about how they had originally used the blocks to stop the marble at the end. He created “walls” with the blocks to try to keep it on track trying several different ideas. The others noticed and were quick to help. They noticed the marble was “going too far” and asked for something to prop the end up higher. I could tell they wanted to slow it down and have it roll backwards on the track. So, I simply observed and let them test different ways to try to make the marble roll.

They tried several things to make the incline higher and lower testing the marble speed each time. After 15 minutes we cleaned up. So much happened so quickly that day. It was important that I try to develop a plan for the next day to build on what they learned. However, I did not want to tell them what to do so I thought about new “challenges” to introduce over the next few days .

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