Wash and repeat...

Just like the shampoo bottle, repeating is a great thing! If you are a reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm a firm advocate of doing a science lesson (at least the first bit) twice. If the children are making oobleck, although I will do all my questioning and prompting, it will be the first time the children have made it so there's loads going on in their heads! The second time, which could be the next day, I might challenge them with thinking like a scientist or how could we record our noticings like scientists? 
It's interesting that even Year 7 and 8 students can benefit from repeat opportunities. Yes, you could change the experiment a little, for example, replacing the paper for photocopy card when making copters, but it's impressive the improvement in student thinking and communication with a second go. 
I'd also revisit the ideas later in the year too. It may not be the same experiment but might have sufficient links that you can see whether students have developed that thinking and vocabulary. If I had made oobleck, I might make cornflour and conditioner 'dough' and remind children of what we had done previously.
This repeating is also good for me too! I get to try out my questions again, challenge with vocabulary, encourage further questioning and since I have a better idea of student response, I can refine my goals of capability development further. 

A giant spider seen on the log... okay it wasn't "giant" but was really big -about 2 cms!

I spent a lovely few days working with sole charge schools in Wairoa last week and saw this in action. In one school visit, we had the children looking at a tree log (which we originally thought was a stump!) with the aim of developing student questioning. The class had a bit of a chat first about how we should investigate as scientists -can we just rip the tree apart, does it matter about the flora and fauna we discover, etc... it was interesting the the first look captured some students' interest but not deeply -we sort of just looked! We then headed back up to the school where we discussed what we had seen and looked at questions we had written on post-it notes during the look. Immediately heading back down to the tree, I was really surprised at the difference of student behaviour with the second look. More questions were written, children got right into the log with a lot more close observation of what they were seeing. There was more interest and more engagement in all the children. 
Our goal from this lesson was for children to investigate further on their own back in the classroom -what did we see and can we learn more about this 'stuff'. During the second visit the principal and I both realised we should have brought iPads down to photograph and in hindsight, I think it would have been good to have got the children into pairs -one can photograph and jot down notes and wonderings whilst the other investigates!

I'm assuming these are all eggs with the ones on the left fresh -but not sure from what! Slugs? Snails?

I met a principal that I had worked with the previous day (was a busy week) and he showed some student diagrams that we had the children make after an experiment. The children had carried out the experiment, we discussed it, and then the principal carried out the experiment in front of them and they drew diagrams that we critiqued later in the day. He had carried out the experiment again the next day and the children drew diagrams again after they had all critiqued their efforts from the day before. The difference was very visible. Detail had been put in and labels were more accurate and self-explanatory, as well as titles added. 
In chatting with the literacy facilitator (we were doing a joint teacher-only day PLD session with the schools), there was a lot of conversation about the need for practice. When we're practising a PE skill such as shot put, we don't tend to do it once, critique the efforts and then move onto long jump! We keep going with the shot put and perhaps we need to think about this with science as well. The repeating of the same diagram definitely showed improvement. The Austin's Butterfly video (on youtube) is a really good example of this -good to play for your syndicate but also for the class!

And I have even less of an idea on these... we decided that they were natural because there were different sizes and some of the rings seemed stuck together. Originally I thought there were man-made but not so sure!

So there we have it! Have a try. Often we teachers tend to think we need "new and exciting" for every lesson, but there's real value in repeating lessons and activities. Have a try!

As always, I'm happy to discuss this further -send me an email or comment on this blog. I do have a facebook page called "Science Happening NZ" where I post photos, videos and ideas to support science teaching.
It's also time to think about whether you'd like some science PLD for 2019. There's lots of different ways this can look in schools. I'm happy to chat further if you're curious.

Keep on sciencing!
Paul