As fun as our incline plane experiments were last week, everyone was excited to jump right into our science lesson this week. The topic of the day? Levers.
Now today we started out nice and boring with a nice traditional looking lever. We learned about the parts (pivot, load, and force) needed to make it work and practiced a couple times. I checked out a book from the library last week on simple machines and we read the section on levers, but the experiment they had was quite a bit more complicated then I really wanted to get into (it was a three part marble works type set up). I envisioned Kylee ripping it apart as we were putting it together!
What was I to do? Well, we (I) decided to talk about every little boy’s favorite example of a lever – the catapult.
We crinkled up little scraps of paper, got out a few spoons and fired away.
Don’t worry, I did not neglect my children’s education for a morning of pure entertainment. I forced them to identify (between launches) the pivot (holding hand), load (paper ball), and force (releasing hand).
If you are feeling as free spirited as I was this morning, you may even suggest target practice in the living room. Blue painters tape (yes its from 3M Dad, you bought it for me) works great.
Too further your child’s education (or if you are just lazy like me) refuse to create a scoreboard or to do any of the writing and addition. After all, everyone has been practicing writing their name, right?
And the 1 year old? She makes a great retriever.
I will admit, however, that when she began demonstrating her understanding of levers by loading her hand with anything she could find and applying the force of her arm around the pivot of her shoulder (aka throwing everything in sight) the fun was somewhat over!
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