The baby chose to study earthworms… of all things. He filled the four corners of a box with soil, leaves, gravel and sand and wet them down with a water bottle. He added 5 earthworms from the yard and we tracked their preference of habitat over the course of 24 hours. If you’re wondering, they initially ran for the leaves, but once those dried out they headed for the soil. None of this was shocking since we found that earthworms turn dead plants and leaves into nutrients for the soil, BUT they need moisture to be able to breathe.
After the recent meteor activity, John was inspired. He used balls of various weights and sizes to see what kind of crater they might make on impact. He dropped them from the top of an 8’ ladder into a box of flour. As it turns out, the size of the meteor was directly correlated to the size of the crater, while the weight didn’t have a real impact. I always make them have an elevator speech on why their project is important. In our research, we found that meteorites are important to study because they were not only linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but also to earthquakes and volcano eruptions.
Now, when it came time for the display boards, I am pretty particular about TEACHING them how to present things well. For Whit’s, we copied and pasted research off the internet and I typed up his pages while he watched and we talked through them. He is five. John typed his own cards. I showed them how to glue everything on using a line as a guide. I mention this because I heard a parent at set up complaining that some parents must do their kids projects for them because their boards weren’t taped on a crooked and written in crayon. While I’m sure that is the case (again, they are very young), I do believe you have to coach them on the professional way to do it. Who else will?!?! Seeing as the school has yet to teach them anything about the scientific method I’m guessing display board skills are very low on the list. :-) Anyhoo… I’m letting that go…
While I helped with the typing, Whit did make all of his visuals and graphs with much coaching and encouragement. So, this is how I found him after walking away for two minutes… super studious, no?!
On the other hand, this one was plugging away on his graphs.
While we didn’t have any official winners this year, we all learned a ton and had a lot of fun conducting the experiments.
Both of them should be proud of their effort. Honey and I are thrilled that they even do these optional projects each year! (It was neon day at school, hence the awful yellow shirts.)
xoxo
