SAVY 2019: Session 5, Day 1 – Wind and Wings (Rising 1st/2nd)

Posted by hallep on Monday, July 15, 2019 in Grade 1, Grade 2, SAVY.

What a great first day! I can already tell that this is going to be a great week because this class has so many interesting ideas to share. We spent the morning experimenting with Newton’s Laws of Motion using bouncy balls. The students experimented with bouncing and rolling balls. Some of their observations included:

• Balls can roll a long distance without stopping
• Dropped ball at waist bounced 6 times, dropped ball over head bounced 7 times
• Balls don’t always roll where you want them to

Their thoughtful observations guided our learning about the laws of motion and different forces. After thinking about the bouncy balls, we moved on to toy cars. We explored forces using the cars. The students noticed that the friction from the carpet slowed the cars, and they also noticed that if they put too much force it to rolling the car, it flipped over instead of rolling. Their observations provided a great foundation for learning about flight.

We also did some thinking about gravity and resistance.  To help us explore, we did some quick experiments with gravity and lift. I dropped some items in the stairwell including a marker, a roll of tape, a piece of paper, and a wadded piece of paper. The students compared what happened, and it led to a great discussion on shape and weight since the weight of the pieces of paper were the same.

In the afternoon, we spent some time experimenting with flight. We flew paper airplanes and thought about the four forces of flight: gravity/weight, lift, thrust, and drag. We talked about how the 4 forces of flight might affect the paper airplanes, and the students came up with ideas about how to balance the forces.

Tomorrow, we will start learning about birds and flight. The students already have a lot of questions they want to research and I can’t wait to see how the week unfolds!