A research lab in Young Kindergarten

Young Kindergarten began the day with a science question.

 

As they gathered before the bell, a few of them shared their guesses, based only on what they could see with their eyes.

 

In morning meeting, they got to explore it with their hands.

 

Some went straight to a hypothesis:

 

It is a type of coconut

 

It is a weird toy thingy

 

Others just made observations:

 

You could make it into a hat.

 

It is heavier than I thought!

 

It is cold and heavy and it has a stem like it grew with lots of water and lots of sun and then someone put it in the refrigerator.

 

Some put the observations and the hypothesis together:

 

It is cold and smooth like a penguin so I think it is freeze power from a penguin

 

It could be a squash, but it is not squishy.

 

As the students passed the object, their teacher was working a parallel curriculum.

 

Who is talking?

 

Can you hear them?

 

How do you show someone you are listening?

 

Is it your turn?

 

It had nothing to do with nature observation, and everything to do with collaborative research.

 

A breakthrough came when a student tried listening to it.

 

All agreed it would make a good drum.

 

The sound: it was hard on the outside, but perhaps it was a squash and it was squishy inside!

 

As the squash hypothesis gained traction, higher-level taxonomy conversations began. 

 

Is a squash a plant? A vegetable? A fruit?

 

The teacher read back her notes on the conversation and the class agreed on next steps: later that day, if there was time, they would split the hypothetical squash open and see how squishy it was inside.

 

It was 8:40am, their initial research was done, and with their next steps planned, they headed to Spanish.