Magnetic Loot, Pirates and Mermirates!
Saturday was a busy day. In the morning, I went to a prep meeting for the overseas recruiting fair that'll take place in two weeks. In addition to all the the assignments, I've got to put together all my resume and teaching applicications for the end of this week. Ahhhhh! At noon on Saturday, we had to start setting up our Science Discovery Day booth. Ours was "Steal the Pirates' Magnetic Loot." We had magnetic and non-magnetic 'treasures' in both a sand-filled bucket and a water-filled bucket and using fishing rods with magnetic lures, the kids were to try and steal our loot. Where's the science? Well, we had planned on asking the kids 3 questions each so that they could win 30 seconds of time to steal the bucket. The questions ended up being for the most part too difficult for the students though. Imagine asking a 4 year old what a magnetic force is? Yeah, no.
The fair was to run from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. It was quiet once we set up and then we had a revelation: that there weren't really going to be people coming! The fair was just so that we could see what each other could do! We had one early visitor - one of my fave kids of all time who is the son of one of my fellow Teacher Candidates - and he tested out our booth. By the end of the day, he did walk away with the pirate ship that Rob made and some more loot!
Our revelation about the Day of Science Discovery being 'fake' was wrong. There was really, really, really, a lot of people there. Once we realized that there'd be no orderly line-ups or no time for deep pedagogy involved in our booth, we had to change our tactics. I scared a few kids away with my Mermirate outfit and green face. I was asked if I was seasick a few times. We ended up just asking kids what they thought about magnets. Older kids who had studied magnets in grade 3 had some neat ideas. The little kids - we had some as young as 2 - were harder to engage about magnets. Most identified that they had some in their kitchen. Cool. End of lesson and on to the fishing.
My pirate child helper had advised me well about a new toy pet with a magnet that I bought for our water container. The word spread and more than one child tried to take it home. NO, MINE. ARRRRghgghgh matey!
We were supposed to rotate so that one of our group would leave and check out the other booths, leaving 3 of us 'pirating' the booth. I didn't see much on my walk though because there were so many people and it was hard to move in my mermirate outfit (which was designed by my schoolmate and sidekick, Roberto, and created late Friday night). There were soo many people at the fair. It really showed to me that the faculty has a strong connection with the local community here. There was so much to see, too. Everyone had put a lot of work into their booths. It was quite the day.
There was a lot of interesting challenges with groups who had to put together their science booths together. A lot of people had breakdowns and found it difficult to work with their groups. I can't say that ours wasn't without its highs and lows, but we had fun with the kids and were happy with the way that our booth turned out. Our difficulties arose more when we tried to find time to meet up together. Everyone had such busy schedules. With regards to what we wanted to do, things came together easily. We made a decision not to put up any signs or info - mostly because we were originally in the middle of the hall without a wall behind us - so our booth was a bit different. I think in the end that we had a LOT of the younger kids that were at the fair stop by. I would say that most of the children that stopped by were under 6. Failing getting a job next year, Roberto and I might start a birthday party business for kiddies. We'll call it Magnetic Loot. The loot bags will be amazing.
Minutes Before the Crowd Arrived
The fair was to run from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. It was quiet once we set up and then we had a revelation: that there weren't really going to be people coming! The fair was just so that we could see what each other could do! We had one early visitor - one of my fave kids of all time who is the son of one of my fellow Teacher Candidates - and he tested out our booth. By the end of the day, he did walk away with the pirate ship that Rob made and some more loot!
Our revelation about the Day of Science Discovery being 'fake' was wrong. There was really, really, really, a lot of people there. Once we realized that there'd be no orderly line-ups or no time for deep pedagogy involved in our booth, we had to change our tactics. I scared a few kids away with my Mermirate outfit and green face. I was asked if I was seasick a few times. We ended up just asking kids what they thought about magnets. Older kids who had studied magnets in grade 3 had some neat ideas. The little kids - we had some as young as 2 - were harder to engage about magnets. Most identified that they had some in their kitchen. Cool. End of lesson and on to the fishing.
My pirate child helper had advised me well about a new toy pet with a magnet that I bought for our water container. The word spread and more than one child tried to take it home. NO, MINE. ARRRRghgghgh matey!
We were supposed to rotate so that one of our group would leave and check out the other booths, leaving 3 of us 'pirating' the booth. I didn't see much on my walk though because there were so many people and it was hard to move in my mermirate outfit (which was designed by my schoolmate and sidekick, Roberto, and created late Friday night). There were soo many people at the fair. It really showed to me that the faculty has a strong connection with the local community here. There was so much to see, too. Everyone had put a lot of work into their booths. It was quite the day.
There was a lot of interesting challenges with groups who had to put together their science booths together. A lot of people had breakdowns and found it difficult to work with their groups. I can't say that ours wasn't without its highs and lows, but we had fun with the kids and were happy with the way that our booth turned out. Our difficulties arose more when we tried to find time to meet up together. Everyone had such busy schedules. With regards to what we wanted to do, things came together easily. We made a decision not to put up any signs or info - mostly because we were originally in the middle of the hall without a wall behind us - so our booth was a bit different. I think in the end that we had a LOT of the younger kids that were at the fair stop by. I would say that most of the children that stopped by were under 6. Failing getting a job next year, Roberto and I might start a birthday party business for kiddies. We'll call it Magnetic Loot. The loot bags will be amazing.
Our First Science Discovery Child Explorer
The Mermirate and the Merry Magnetic Fisherboy
Minutes Before the Crowd Arrivedposted by Terri at
7:06 PM
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