Questions; Fire and Ice

Well you just don't know how these classes are going to turn out. I walked into K with a planned demo (one of the annual favorites . . . wait for it . . . it'll come up), and nosed around the Question Box first, and found it empty.

That's not right.

Gotta have Question Box.

I figured maybe a practice round would be a way to reinforce the message about "go ahead and use the question box". So I asked if we could have one, just one, person do a live-action demo of

• have a question
  
• write it on a card (or get help writing it on a card)
  
• pop it in the box
  

And yes, I realize that while some of your kindergarteners are writing a weekly op-ed for the New York Times, many are at something more like a write-one-letter-and-then-draw-a-picture stage. If they prefer, they can ask for help writing their question. Early in the academic year, I typically see question-box questions in several formats, such as

1. A couple of cryptic forms and squiggles
   
2. A bunch of letters wandering about
   
3. A bunch of letters that, on careful examination, bear some relation to words. These are great fun as one can, with a certain amount of practice, actually read them.
   
4. Extremely clear writing with a suspicious resemblance to the teacher's handwriting.
   

(One of the cool things about this game is watching how the question cards advance into stage 3 as the year progresses; and stage 4 cards become extinct)

Having caught half a glimpse of the live-action demo, everybody wanted to do it. Ten minutes later the Question Box was properly stuffed.

Now there have been some back-and-forths around what to do with a wealth of question cards.
One idea is to take the top question, and give it as much time as it needs, fill in the needed background, let the conversation run wild, and only go to the second question when things simmer down a bit. The advantage is that you get really good learning and lots of fun besides. The disadvantage is that if science class lasts under nine hours you don't get to everybody's question, and some question-writers feel left out.
Another idea is to just read everyone's question out loud. Uncle Robby claims that just by hearing his own question the child has engaged intellectually and may already be satisfied. I am a little skeptical of this, though. "All right, I engaged intellectually and twenty-seven professors of child psychology say that I have met my developmental level. Now answer the darn question!"
A modified-Uncle-Robby approach I tried last year was to read them all, then choose a few to discuss. The grapevine tells me that the preterite knew dang well they were being left out.
So now I'm considering - - read all of 'em, give every one at least a short answer, but a serious, factual, targeted answer (even if it leaves a heap of mysteries dripping from every syllable like algae on a Swamp Beast) - - and then choose one or two for exegesis. We'll see how this works. In any case, that's supposed to be part of The Art of Montessori Teaching:
Right words, fewest words.
This week, anyway, we ran out of time before getting through them all. And my prepared demo stayed in its box.

Over in Elementary - - my goodness, this is getting long: are you still reading? . . . because of last week's question about getting frozen and brought back to life, I brought in some examples of what happens when you freeze water, and how it stretches, distorts, or shatters its container. These were pretty well-received. I wanted also to show that most substances (unlike water at zero degrees C) expand with warming, not cooling. Have you tried building a demonstration of this? It's not easy! After bungling around the garage half the night before, I ended up with a variation on the tightrope demo. It worked pretty well at home, but you had to be rather forgiving and optimistic to say it really worked at school. Fortunately, anything with fire is fairly satisfying to a classroom audience.
Followup questions about pond eutrophication and solar energy proved that yes, they certainly are listening. New question-box offerings asked about sweat and death (that sounds almost like a book title).