martinzoo

Thinking activities

January 12th, 2009

Today our co-op worked on some thinking activities. And the kids were so adorable. There was a lot of brain power going on in those rooms.

The first activity was from the Zoom website. It was called Keep a Cube.  The kids were given a limited amount of materials; a box, newspaper, wax paper, foil, rubber bands, tape and two ice cubes. One ice cube was a control and was placed on a paper plate to see how long it took to melt. The kids then tried to construct a device that would keep the other ice cube from melting.

The kids put a lot of effort into insulating their boxes. And what was cool was that each box was totally different from the other boxes. We split the kids into teams of two to keep down the confusion.

Some kids focused mainly on the newspaper as an insulator.

And some kids were more focused on the foil.

The girls put more of an effort into surrounding the actual ice cube with insulation and THEN putting it in the box.

In each case they were able to keep their cube in better shape than the control.

Our next activity came from the same web site and was called, Puff Mobile. The materials for this activity included: 3 straws (we used 4 because we had some straws that were wimpy), 4 Lifesavers, 1 piece of paper, 2 paper clips, and tape. Their purpose was to create a vehicle propelled by a puff of breath. We had two kinds of races after the construction phase was over, a distance race and a speed race.

Each child was intensely focused during this activity and we got some amazing vehicles. First they spent a long time creating…….

Then they did a bit of testing and adapting of their designs.

And once again, it was very cool to see how each vehicle was so different from the others.

Even the girls enjoyed themselves and had quite a good showing in the races. Racing is not just for boys!

Then the racing began. We had three heats, the winners from the first two heats raced each other.

The air in the room was THICK with excitement. It truly was.

And it was a whole lot of fun!

Share This

Entry Filed under: Co-op