Our 1st Knowledge Building Science Lesson

Our first topic in P4 Science is on Body Systems. So, I decided to start off this theme by introducing 4A children to one of the main systems (Digestive System) through a simple activity that would trigger several interesting questions and lead them to the understanding of the topic. I gave each child a small piece from a slice of bread and did not tell them what it was for or why they had to eat the bread. Ofcourse, 4A consists of big eaters like me and a few more of us. We got to a bigger share after the experiment....:-) Before they placed the bread into their mouth, they were told to take note of few things. For example, they were asked to remember the steps of actions that took place from the moment they place the bread into their mouth. The taste of the bread at the start, middle and at the end of the experiment (before they swallowed it). Then we all began to eat the bread the same time. The pupils had to chew/grind the slice for at least 40s and were told not to swallow it until they were told to do so. After 40s of grinding process, I told them to open their mouth to show their friends how the food looked inside their mouth and they finally pushed it down their gullet. When they were done, they were asked to draw and write the steps in their nature study book and were all given post it pads to write questions relating to the activity that they just did. I was amazed to see the kind of responses they came up with and was very impressed with the number of questions they generated. The entire KB board in our classroom was filled with brilliant questions that could lead us to discuss and learn more about the digestive system in our next lesson. Here are some pics on 4A children in action...

And that's how many Q's they came up with...Phew....so much to think about!!!