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A trial run of an activity I may go in and do with Junie's preschool class, done with a younger friend. Two separate but related parts.
Project: Making Layers
Materials: glass jar, salt, rice, lentils (or other such cheap pourables, you could use sand, etc)
Explanatory details: We took turns and poured things into the jar - salt "from an ocean", rice "from plants", and lentils, representing lava, "from a volcano", and then looked at how they made layers.
How did it go: Fine.
Things we talked about: Different things can make different layers of rocks. The oldest layer, from something that happened first, is on the bottom, and the newest layer, from something that happened last, is on the top.
What Junie got out of it: I think she got the oldest/bottom, recent/top thing? And liked looking at the layers?
Project: Sampling Layers
Materials: playdoh in multiple colors, clear plastic drinking straws, paper
Explanatory details: I put four discs of playdoh in different colors and different thicknesses together and wrapped paper around the edge. The kids stabbed drinking straws down into the playdoh and looked at the resulting core sample to see how they thought the layers would look. Then I unwrapped the playdoh so we could compare it to what we saw in the straws.
How did it go: Great!
Things we talked about: If you're standing on top of the ground, you can't see rock layers from the side (I had us look down into the top of the jar), so you don't know what they are, so you can find out by taking a core sample. From the top, we could only see blue playdoh, but in the straws we could see what colors were underneath it.
What Junie got out of it: Junie really liked stabbing the playdoh.
(The latter is a variation on an activity I had learned years ago, with cupcakes made with different layers of dyed batter, with kids at a science daycamp I was assisting at.)
Project: Making Layers
Materials: glass jar, salt, rice, lentils (or other such cheap pourables, you could use sand, etc)
Explanatory details: We took turns and poured things into the jar - salt "from an ocean", rice "from plants", and lentils, representing lava, "from a volcano", and then looked at how they made layers.
How did it go: Fine.
Things we talked about: Different things can make different layers of rocks. The oldest layer, from something that happened first, is on the bottom, and the newest layer, from something that happened last, is on the top.
What Junie got out of it: I think she got the oldest/bottom, recent/top thing? And liked looking at the layers?
Project: Sampling Layers
Materials: playdoh in multiple colors, clear plastic drinking straws, paper
Explanatory details: I put four discs of playdoh in different colors and different thicknesses together and wrapped paper around the edge. The kids stabbed drinking straws down into the playdoh and looked at the resulting core sample to see how they thought the layers would look. Then I unwrapped the playdoh so we could compare it to what we saw in the straws.
How did it go: Great!
Things we talked about: If you're standing on top of the ground, you can't see rock layers from the side (I had us look down into the top of the jar), so you don't know what they are, so you can find out by taking a core sample. From the top, we could only see blue playdoh, but in the straws we could see what colors were underneath it.
What Junie got out of it: Junie really liked stabbing the playdoh.
(The latter is a variation on an activity I had learned years ago, with cupcakes made with different layers of dyed batter, with kids at a science daycamp I was assisting at.)
