A
distinguishing characteristic of Montessori education is the use of hands-on
materials (aka “concrete manipulatives”), especially those that Montessori herself
invented for math. The lower elementary physical science curriculum gives
children key experiences with astronomy, physics, and chemistry. Experiment
topics include gravity, inertia, forces and motion, volcanism, magnetism,
electricity, buoyancy and density, plate tectonics, erosion, states of matter, and
simple machines.
In the past six weeks, we’ve done a slew of experiments around buoyancy, yeast, surface tension, and effervescence. Most of these physical science concepts revolve around water, as we have been studying states of matter and the properties of liquids in physics and geology. In the next few weeks, we will also be going on a field trip to the local Water Conservation Garden to explore water usage in our desert biome of southern California.
Density & Buoyancy
One element of setting up a hands-on science experiment with a mixed-age class of children (ages 6-9) is preparation. I gathered nine glasses and nine different bags of objects from our Practical Life shelves and our STEAM supply cart: foam rollers, marbles, shells, rubber bands, plastic screws, buttons, pasta, and golf tees. The children had a sheet on which they could predict whether the objects would sink (density) or float (buoyancy), write the actual result, and hypothesize why the objects floated or sank. Partners took turns on individual tables. It was a fun activity that the children cleaned up themselves!
Elephant Toothpaste
Some traditional Montessori experiments contain hard-to-find
materials or materials that I sometimes feel unsafe allowing children to use (iron
filings?). Children are very visual and love (even if they see it every year)
an exploding volcano -- but everyone does that. Although it is cool every time,
one of the things I need to do as a Montessori educator is mix it up every
year. I love when older students see a lesson with the first years and say, “Hey,
we didn’t do the Noun lesson that way last year!”
What would scientist Maria Montessori do in 2020?
Elephant Toothpaste includes a bottle, warm
water, a packet of dry yeast, hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and streaks of food
coloring. We had started making a sourdough starter with yeast, so we discussed
how yeasts (like mushrooms) are part of the Fungi Kingdom. Children offered
various predictions about what would happen, reinforcing the Scientific Method
we have been using all year. The experiment exploded, and the children loved
it!
Surface
Tension
The
two surface tensions experiments were really great for refining fine motor
skills. The first, which I’ll call Folded
Flowers (a nice precursor to our upcoming Botany study), involved freehand
drawing a flower on white construction paper. Each child got enough paper to
draw two different flowers, maybe one with four short round petals and one with
six long petals; decorated the flower with color pencils; cut them out very
carefully; then folded each petals in to the center and placed it in a large
flat bowl of water. Some poked at their flowers, and others watched as the
flowers bloomed – due to surface tension!
In
the second experiment, we reviewed our Folded Flower experience and discussed
how water molecules join together before I got out a blue bowl and poured some
coffee creamer in it. I added three drops of different food coloring with
plenty of space in between them. (At a whole group like this with a small
object that shouldn’t yet be moved, I asked the children to stand up at group
and look from their spot so everyone could see.) I then stirred it with a
chopstick and walked that psychedelic mixture around circle. Finally, I added a
single drop of dish soap, and the color pushed across the surface to the outer
edge. The magic of science! The magic of
the real. It reminded one student of our First Great Lesson using pepper, a
very common Montessori experiment.
Effervescence
This
last experiment contained the fewest ingredients and probably had the most wow
factor. I half- filled two glasses with vegetable oil and added about a half
cup of water. These separated into two layers, and that gave us a chance to
revisit the idea of density. (Everything is connected!) In one glass, I dropped
some glitter. Then I dropped into both glasses one or two drops of food
coloring and a tablet of Alka-Seltzer, and the Lava Lamp began for a few
minutes. (Another psychedelic moment!) The children noticed, after lunch, how
the darkest color had fallen to the bottom since the sodium bicarbonate and
citric acid in the Alka-Seltzer had finished dissolving!
Montessori
education is STEAM education.
