Book choices for today:

Motion: Push and Pull, Fast and Slow   Stille
Forces and Motion    Clint Twist
The Littlest Matryoshka    Corinne Demas Bliss

Science: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Pieces of cardboard or thin wood to make ramps and marbles. (Long swimming tubes can also be cut by splitting them down the middle and it leaves a nice groove for marbles to roll down). Rocks and a plastic bag with handles.

Science 63
Yesterday we learned about centripetal force and centrifugal force. When something is moving it is in motion. Today we are going to experiment with these ramps and marbles (have one ramp set up with marbles at the bottom of it). This is my ramp and there are marbles at the bottom of it. If I roll this marble down the ramp, what do you think will happen to those marbles at the bottom? Let’s try it and see what happens.
The marble that we used to roll down the ramp was moving, it had energy. A moving object has energy. When the rolling marble hits the marbles that are standing still at the bottom of the ramp, the energy of the rolling marble is passed to the marbles that were still and this gave them energy. So because of the energy, or motion, of the rolling marble the still marbles moved. This is an example of kinetic energy.
Inside this plastic bag there are rocks. I am going to twist the handles around and around and then let it go. Did the bag unwind quickly? So what is happening? The weight of the rocks creates a force or motion that grows and grows and is hard to stop. This is called momentum.
As the marbles roll down the ramps, the they gain momentum. If we make a taller ramp what kind of momentum will the marbles gain? We can experiment with the marbles and ramps to find out.
Have an area set up for children to explore with the ramps and marbles.

Additional Works:

Marble Building Kit – This is a kit that can be found in many stores. Children build the structure which always changes, and roll marbles down various tubes.

Marble Building Kit

Geography: (second circle)

Need for Lesson – The book, The Littlest Matryoshka, story props (I made these to go along with the story), and a Stacking Doll set.

Before you read the story, talk with the children about another country in Asia, called Russia. This country belongs to two continents. We are going to read about some little dolls that are from Russia, on the East side of Asia.