At the onset of DAY 3 we talked about some of the things that had happened the day before. We were unable to have our regular reflection discussion at the end of DAY 2 due to and an unexpected fire drill. During this reflection, the children described some of the ways in which they built their pathways. They described how they made their marbles move and named some tools they found in the classroom that they used to assist them in some of their goals, such as a book, the wall, blocks, and some recycled materials I had on hand. So far only two teams of children have made an incline to assist the movement of their marbles. Both of these teams called their incline a “slide.” One of the teams of children used the blocks to lift up their path. They did not add and incline, just lifted the entire horizontal path. I asked several children today to describe what they had created. They were very explicit in describing and showing me what they had done. The pathways were more elaborate today. When one child lost his marble he asked me for another one. I explained that it had to be in the room because the door was shut, so I expected him to continue looking for it. He asked his partner to help him look for it and they found it. Giving only one marble was suggested by Dr. Causey, my professor from UAB, so that they will be more aware of the marble, more responsible. More importantly though, it was a strategy to encourage them to think about ways to keep the marbles from rolling far away and sometimes out of sight. During their construction time I asked them if they could make their pathways make a turn. Some of them tried for a very short time, but then returned to working on what interested them more. Tomorrow I will ask them to try this again. I will ask more questions to encourage more thinking, as well.
INTRO TO RAMPS AND PATHWAYS 