Play, Explore and Deliberate Acts of Teaching

This week I've been in Opotiki modelling and co-teaching and having a lovely time with great teachers and a bunch of children who get very excited for science (although being a bit mad helps too -me, not the teachers!). I'm thinking this will be one of the last blogposts for the year. Can I just say thanks to those of you who have emailed me, commented in the blogs or chatted with me when I have visited schools. It really does help to know there is an audience out there that wants to connect and discuss this stuff further!
Two things really shone out for me from the lessons that I thought I'd share with you. 
The first was a lesson we did from the Connected Fact or Fiction article on Pseudoscience. We started with a science board whole class reading activity and then the next day did the experiment exploring how much fat is in regular chips and non-fat ones. What was interesting was watching the children carrying out the experiment. We had talked beforehand about being methodical and careful with measuring and doing the investigation and on the whole they were. However, watching the children reminded us of the need to be giving them more opportunities to carry out experiments by themselves with less input from the teachers i.e. reading the experiment carefully. We also talked about the deliberate acts of teaching that is needed to support students in reading and carrying out procedures. They may need to be taught how to read carefully through the steps, not skipping bits as well as reading why they are doing the experiment and the expected outcomes. Children may not necessarily get better just by doing lots of experiments -they may need chances to talk about how to do the experiment as well as why we need to follow the steps. I know it might not seem like rocket science (no pun intended!) but in the busyness of the lesson we can forget!
The second moment came from working with intermediate age children and Lego. They were investigating whether they could affect a vehicles travel speed or distance by adding weight or aerodynamics, etc -it was their choice of variable. We discovered that we hadn't left much time for 'play'. I had leapt straight into the lesson but the children wanted the chance just to play, pull apart the cars and rebuild them as well as do the experiment. Most didn't start with recording but if I mentioned it, they immediately grabbed a book and recorded the data well. The teacher and I ended up talking about whether we should have had a chance to 'play' first with the ideas, perhaps a half hour lesson but still encouraging that scientific thinking with their efforts and then the next day, doing the lesson again with an emphasis on scientific thinking and behaviour -which, when I asked the children during the lesson, were all well aware of -they were just too busy to remember! This did happen a little with the first lesson too -we noticed they were very excited perhaps because we hadn't done much of this kind of science before. All were keen on the experiment and were aware of how to act -they were just enjoying the lesson and the experience too much! 
Again, that whole idea of needing to allow children the chance to play and explore is really essential. As is the need to be deliberate about how we teach science so that they grow that understanding of what science is. I had a fantastic week at the school and watching the way all the children responded in science was heartwarming. I love it when the PLD is working!

As always, keep an eye on my Facebook page for pictures and videos and the odd extra idea, search for "science happening NZ". The latest lesson was sent out this morning all about paper flowers and capillary action. 

Keep on sciencing!
Paul