Monday, April 9, 2018

Recipe to Discovery


We came back from spring break and I was greeted by these colorful projects on the window.

They are mine from my class. This was my idea.

Well, I found the idea online, but it was my execution.

Since the students had many questions about it, we did this activity to see what the water cycle was physically like. The water in the bag will actually go through the water cycle when it gets heated and cooled.

But looking at the bags, I thought back to something I have heard often that goes something like, "If all the students are doing the same thing, it's not an activity, it's a recipe." (Iknow that's not right by a long shot, but I cannot find the quote right now.)

I don't regret doing this activity, but I do regret the way I did it. If I were to do it over, I would ...

  1. Start by putting water in the bags and putting the bags up on the window. Then we would just wait, watch, and question.
  2. We would then figure out where to go from the students' questions and wonderings.
  3. I would hope that we would come to (this might need to be guided) how the water cycle works in the world. Students would research different versions of what the water cycle might look like and draw them on the sides of the bags.
My class is pushing me this year.

2 comments:

  1. I like how natural the reflection seems to be. Reflection is so important--even when the original plan technically worked. I'd be interested to see how much guidance the kiddos would need to get through the inquiry and start to make those connections, but I agree it would be powerful as they did. I can see my own kiddo loving this type of inquiry-based exploration and getting there. Thanks for sharing!

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