It’s Shocking!
For the past few weeks MP1 has been practicing making predictions and conducting fun experiments using static electricity as part of their fun new IPC unit, it's shocking.
By Roland Schmidt, Teaching Assistant MP1
How to make a prediction
As with all IPC units, ‘It’s Shocking’ is a multifaceted unit exploring electricity from the scientific, historical, and international contexts. One of my favorite lessons in this unit had the children experiment with balloons and discover how static electricity can be used to pick up various types of paper and other classroom resources.
Making a prediction was one of the key objectives from this lesson and such a fun skill for the children to practice. We make predictions in our language lessons all the time, looking at the covers of books and making sensible guesses about the plot of the story, so, using this same skill in another context is a great way to make cross curricular connections.
Another advantage to this unit is being able to play with our wonderful STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) toys. These toys allow the children to use ‘links’ to connect a battery source to a motorized helicopter or light.
It’s Shocking’ has been such a great unit, it’s difficult to say goodbye. However, we plan to end this unit with a fun ‘Exit Point’ to review the and reflect on our learning, shadow puppets. More on this soon…!
