This hands-on workshop will focus on the process and inquiry skills developed in Early Childhood classrooms in order to encourage a scientific and logical mindset for our youngest of learners. Throughout the workshop practitioners will be involved in activities that can be used in their classrooms to encourage their students to think in a more divergent manner. Below I have uploaded the PowerPoint to be used, and the descriptions of the activities that will be presented.
| Process & Inquiry PowerPoint |
| M&M Graphing |
M&M Graphing is used to show the collecting, organizing, and displaying of data. The students are asked to sort the M&M's (or other colorful object) by any means they like. Then they graph the data on the bar graph.
During a Transportation Unit, I would follow up previous sink and float activities with a Foil Boat Experiment. The students would design their boat and create it out of one sheet of aluminum foil (about 12" x 12"). Then test to see if their design is successful by adding pennies until the boat sinks. They chart and graph their amount of pennies on the class data to see whose was able to hold the most pennies.
| M&M Color |
M&M Color- Fun was to work on observational skills and delay gratification for EC students. This experiment takes a few minutes to see anything happening but then is an amazing phenom.
|
Three Apple Venn Diagram- Doing apple tasting is a great way to talk about the sense of taste. Venn Diagramming the student's choices takes that activity to a higher level. Using three apples and a three circle Venn Diagram makes the students really think before placing their name on the chart.
|
|
|
|
Rainbow Milk Experiment- This is fun to do during the week of St. Patrick's Day. This experiment is useful to teach observation skills, as well as communicating and making predictions. Your students will go crazy with the reaction of the milk!
|
| Life Cycle of a Plant |
Life Cycle of a Plant activity- During a Nature Unit, I would start out with having students do the sequencing cards. Then I would challenge them by having them create a dance, without words, to show the sequence of the Life Cycle of a Plant
Life Cycle of a Butterfly- During a Nature Unit discuss Life Cycles, and do the growing butterfly activity where you observe and watch butterflies grow from caterpillars to beautiful butterflies. Finally challenge the students by asking them to create a song/rap to explain the Life Cycle of a Butterfly.
| DNA Strands of a Dog |
This activity takes you through the creation of a dog using DNA strands. A great activity to show the creation of models, plus the students will have fun creating the picture of their dog.
