Exploring play dough

Play dough offers learners an interesting way to explore the effects of pushes and pulls. The students were encouraged to describe how the play dough feels (smooth, (squishy, flexible), as well as talk about what they are doing with play dough. 

For example: 

1. I am rolling the dough.

2. I am squishing the dough.

3. I am smashing the dough.

4. I am stretching the dough.

5. I am twisting the dough. 

The students made a connection between a stretching  or twisting action as a ‘pull’ and a squashing, rolling or squeezing action as a ‘push’.

Note for parents: Give play dough to your child and practice the above 5 sentences with them. 

Magnetic toys

The key concept of the magnetic activity is that magnets attract and repel other magnets, and attract magnetic things made from materials that include iron. At this stage, the students need to know is that magnets attract some materials and not others.
The students took magnetic toys and tried to stick them in different places.

Push and Pull- Tug of war

Pushes and Pulls are forces. Forces can speed things up, slow things down or make things change direction or change shape. 

As a part of science curriculum, students played Tug Of War to understand the concept of Push and Pull. One team on each side pulls harder, the rope will begin to move towards the other team, making other team Lose. The forces becomes unbalanced and the direction of movement is the same as the direction of the larger force.

Taking away- How many am I hiding?

The concept of ‘TAKING AWAY’ was introduced with an interesting game ‘How many am I hiding?’
The students were shown 5 beads. Then 4 beads were hid under a box and the students were asked a question- “I have hidden 4 beads, How many beads can you see?” (One)
Simultaneously beads were hidden till no bead was left.
This game helped the students with the taking away concept.

After this game, another subtraction game was played. This one on the smart board. Kids were presented with taking away problems and need to pop balloons to find the solution.
The vocabulary used for taking away was- Five ‘take away’ one is four.

Note for parents- Practice take away with pictures and objects. Use the vocabulary word ‘take away’