Racing Cars

Winter Inquiry Continued

Our students, particularly the boys, are very interested in toy cars.  Our classroom collection of cars has significantly grown recently, as the students donate their own cars .

   

Based on this interest, Ms. Marrella and I thought we would pose a question to our students and the Wonder Wall for investigation.   Our question asked... Which car will travel the furthest distance in the school hallway and in the snow?

Our fist step in solving this problem was to sort our car collection.  Our first sorting attempt was unsuccessful.  We realized that we needed to use our voice and communicate with each other about putting the same type of car in the same sorting square.  We tried again, and re-sorted our collection. 

      

Our second sorting attempt worked!  We also realized that we needed 9 sorting squares rather than just 6 to sort our collection of cars. 

It wasn't until our cars were sorted that we realized we had a lot of little Hot Wheels cars.  We decided to count and write out the number of each sorted pile. 

Then, we created a graph and interpreted our results.  Our graph showed us that the Hot Wheels, the Zamboni trucks collected from McDonalds, and the large race cars were our largest collection.  We also learned that we had a very small airplane collection.    

We made predictions about which car we
thought would travel the furthest distance.

 It was time to test our cars inside and outside to see which car would travel the furthest distance.  

The winning indoor car!

We found this snow ramp.  We thought it
would be perfect to give our cars a boost!

The winning outdoor car! 

Reflecting Thoughts

Knowing that our students love playing with the car collection, Ms. Marrella and I decided to use them in our Winter Inquiry.  This project required students to sort through our collection of cars.  It was okay that our first sorting attempt didn't work because it gave us an opportunity to re-sort and understand that communication and collaborating with each other is key.  We always knew that we had a large Hot Wheels collection, but it really wan't until the cars were sorted that we saw how large that pile was.  Using one-to-one correspondence we counted each sorted pile of cars and then wrote the number out on pieces of paper.  This activity gave us a chance to practice counting objects one at a time, rather than skipping over a few.  By placing the cars on a graph, our students were given a different perspective of our car collection.  The car graph also gave students a chance to interpret the different columns and cars.  Through the different investigations we have been exploring in our class, our students have become familiar with predicting.  Some students still give predictions without a rationale, while other students are learning to base their predictions on reason (e.g., the monster trucks will travel the furthest because their wheels are bigger).  Racing the cars gave students a chance to cheer on and root for each other.   Though our inquiry on Winter has slowly come to an end (for now), we have sparked a new interest about cars.  Our students have begun to ask questions and are curious about building ramps to fly cars, and the rockets at the back of cars (aka, the exhaust pipes).     

  

Melting Frozen Paint

Winter Inquiry Continued

Wonder Wall question

Recently, one of our students wondered how paint melts when it is frozen. 

We tested this out by filing half an ice tray with different colours of paint, and the other half with water.  We wanted to make a comparison.

We made predictions (that means guessed) what would happen.

After first recess we wanted to see what, if any changes had occurred.  We observed that the water had already froze, but the paint needed more time.  

After second recess the paint finally froze.  

Now that our paint was frozen, we were ready to test our original question - How does paint melt when it is frozen?  Just to make it interesting, we decided to mix some paint colour cubes together to see what would happen.  

It was time to go home.  We left our melting paint cubes on the light table. 

We observed that when ice melts it turns to water.  When frozen paint melts, it turn back to paint.  We also observed that two different coloured paint cubes mix, when melted, into a different colour.  Through this experiment our students learned how to make predictions and observations.   

Winter Inquiry

Our first day back to school after Christmas break was full of snowy fun!  After morning recess Ms. Marrella and I noticed a few new structures around the school yard (including inside the kindergarten yard).  We decided to take a closer look at these amazing structures with our students.

While the students were outside, their conversations focused on what the structures looked like, and how the snow and ice felt and sounded.   Later on that day we projected onto the wall a few images of our outdoor exploration, and asked the students to reflect on what they had discovered.

Our reflection prompted some students to ask a few questions about snow and ice.  We added these questions to our Wonder Wall.

The next day, we tried to answer these questions with an experiment. 

First, we filled an ice cube tray with toys. 

 

Then, we added water and placed
the tray outside for a few hours.

 

We predicted what would happen
to the water and toys.

Finally, our tray was ready to explore!

We couldn’t wait to touch the ice and toys.  As we were touching the ice-cubes, we noticed that the ice was quickly melting, but why?  One student realized that our hands were warmer than the ice, and caused the ice to melt.  What a brilliant observation! The students also observed that some pieces of ice broke into little pieces when they tossed it on the floor.   

Our observations.

After our experiment, one of our students wondered if all pieces of ice weighed the same.  This wonder led us to another experiment.  In order to find out if all pieces of ice weighed the same, we decided to fill and freeze an ice cube tray, gloves, a sponge (we had to soak it with water first), and an ice pack. We then make some predictions. 

It took a few hours, and two freezers to finally freeze the all that ice (the first freezer didn’t work!).  We decided to use our pan balance to weigh and compare all these pieces of ice.  We observed that not all pieces of ice weigh the same.  Some pieces of ice are heavier, some pieces of ice are lighter, and some pieces of ice are the SAME!  

Our Winter Inquiry has just begun.  We can’t wait to see where our curiosity will take us.