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Ms. Bramen reminds the preschoolers in her class, "Yesterday, Josie tried to use the pathways and blocks to make the marble go from one wall to the other wall. She would like your help to find a way to do this."
Josie: I want to make it high so the marble moves by itself.
Kyle: We should make one side go up. We can't only build it tall.
Josie: We need a way for the marbles to move instead of bringing them up every time. That is a problem.
Ms. Bramen: Zachary, it looks like you are trying to make a path that turns and one that goes straight.
Stella: Are we supposed to make it straight?
Ms. Bramen: That is for the group to decide. Figure out what works best.
Zachary: It needs to be straight so the marble doesn't stop.
Stella: I think we should experiment. I'll work on this side.
The children set up the blocks with a horizontal and level pathway going across the top.
Kyle: I have an idea (and he picks up a smaller, thinner block).
We should use these and make it go really high!
Working cooperatively, the children try out their ideas, making revisions as they go. They ask questions of their peers and point out problems, using their reasoning. They are persistent and continue to work together until they are satisfied with their solution.
Physics for preschoolers? Physics is the study of forces and motion - the science of matter and energy and the interaction between the two (Chaille & Britain 2003). The big idea the children explore, as well as the question they ask as they engage in physical knowledge activities related to physics, is "How does it move?" (Chaille & Britain 2003).
Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner hypothesizes that "any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development" ([I960] 1977). For this to happen, we know that teachers must have a knowledge of children's intellectual development to "represent the structure of that subject in terms of the child's way of viewing things," as Bruner suggests (33). He calls this translation.
Many teachers translate naturally as they come to know the children they teach. They use...