My Ramping Activity Experience

1. My Ramping Activity Experience What I did, and what I learned Ashley Andree ELED 216

2. Setting • Activity took place in the Pre-K room of the Hofstra Child Care Institute • Activity was done during center time in the block center • Worked with five young children, ages 3 and 4 years old • All of the children were boys  not my choice!

3. Set-up of ramp • Used a long, open tube made of a thin, egg carton type of material found in classroom • Propped up the ramp against a table in the center to create an angle

4. Materials Controlled variable • One ramp at the same angle at all times during the activity Manipulated variable • Type of toy car used on the ramp • Gave children a few different options, making sure that the size and weight of each of the cars differed dramatically • Other materials • The name tags of each of the children in the group

5. Procedure • Child participation: I asked each child to choose the car that they wanted to send rolling down the ramp, and they experimented with playing with the toys before I integrated any questioning. • Cognitive dissonance: At the beginning of the activity, I asked the children where they thought their car would land. They recorded their predictions by placing their name tags on the floor in their predicted landing location. • Questioning variations:I realized as I was trying to execute the activity that for some of the students, asking them to make that type of prediction was difficult. For these children, I changed my questioning strategy.

6. Example of recording predictions

7. Types of questioning • I used 3 basic questions in this activity, and varied them according to the level of understanding of each child: • Where do you think your car will land? (After which I had the student place his name tag on the floor in the spot he predicted) • Which car will go farther on the rug? • Which car will go faster down the ramp?

8. Mathematical Connection • After each child let his car go down the ramp, I made sure to highlight a comparison between where each car landed in relation to the others. I often said, “Look, this car traveled farther than this car” and I also made sure to verbally analyze the experience based on what prediction the student made, so the child could make connections between the prediction and the experience. • Ex: Big car vs. little car

9. Reflection • Valuable experience, but difficult to keep activity structured • Ex: Rules of a game, turn-taking, only wanted to play freely • Next time, I will make more of an effort to incorporate a real graph in order to bring more of the abstraction ladder into the activity, however, this particular classroom environment did not really provide the space to incorporate a real graph.

10. Reflection • In the future, I would like to repeat the activity with more than one ramping structure so that two children can play with the ramps at the same time, and it will be easier to compare results. • Fine-tuning questioning skills – figuring out how I can handle a student who is non-responsive (coming up with a few different question variations). • Need to think from the perspective of a 3 or 4 year old. • Overall, I think the students had fun with the activity, but that some of the concepts were difficult for them to understand. I would be interested in seeing how this activity would work for children ages 4-6 • More accustomed to the rules of a game and social rules of play • Also have higher attention spans

11. FUN WITH RAMPS