Holes and Testing Theories

Morning Group:

Two of our group members brought a huge spade to the group last week and we were all impressed with how it made digging holes in the sand so much easier.

So when I found 'Sam and Dave Dig a Hole' by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen at the library, I knew we needed to 'dig deeper' and think about holes this week!

After reading the story, we talked about holes. If we were to dig through to the other side of the world, where would we end up? What would we find along the way?

We also discussed how deep we thought we could dig. Time to pull out the measuring tapes and rulers to talk about measurement and centimetres. We had a practise with estimating and measuring items around the room before we got ready to go to the beach for our challenge - dig the DEEPEST holes we could!

Practising estimating, then measuring lengths.

We got down to the beach and enjoyed a good dig and play. We measured the size of the holes we made along the way and collected any 'treasures' we discovered along the way. One really interesting find was a large brick about 45cm deep in one hole. Could it have been a part of the boat sheds that were destroyed in a big storm in the 1920s that we learned about from Alan last term?

We had a great time at the beach, digging and playing. All too soon, our time was up and we headed back to base for lunch and to end our time together.

Already, we can see differences in the sand with the very first dig!

How do we fairly measure a hole's depth?

Helping each other measure

It wasn't all about holes - we found mud and bugs too!

Playing with sand is fun!

Brick archaeology

The mighty brick!

Water at 60cm depth

Digging IN the hole!

What made this hole?

Mud art

Time to create a kingdom for little people!

A mini playground

Path to a little house

The kingdom for little people from above. See the butterfly shape?

Filling in the holes before we leave. Can't have anyone fall into them!

Afternoon Group:

After deciding last week to focus on Floating and Sinking, this week was all about figuring out what made things float or sink.

We created a Venn diagram of things that floated, sunk or did both. Some of our initial predictions, such as, 'Light things float and heavy things sink' were questioned. (A light pebble sinks and heavy ships float - why?)

Words like 'surface area', 'density', and 'air' came up as we tried to explain why we thought some things floated, some sank and some did either both or hovered mid-way in the water - what's that called?

It was time to test some of our theories by collecting items, predicting what they would do, then seeing whether they floated or sank.

Predicting what will float and sink - then trying

Many discoveries!

We then got given a piece of paper each and used ideas we discovered in our experimentation to try and create a 'super boat' that would stay afloat the longest, even when the water got rough!

The paper boat challenge. Which one will survive the whirlpool and storm?

We ended our time together by discussing our ideas for making rafts and making designs on paper. Wow - some fabulous ideas! Plan to make your rafts at home and we will use class time to experiment more with floating and sinking at first, then fine-tuning our rafts as the term progresses. The plan is to have a raft day at the end!

To think about at home: What makes things float or sink? Try and be as specific as you can. You may want to do some research and more experimentation to help you find out.