Quick Links
Hillel Hebrew Academy
9120 West Olympic Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
info@hillelhebrew.org
Morah Elana Gettinger
“Sound Ideas In Understanding the Relationship Between Simple Cause and Effect
In addition to understanding cause and effect in terms of social consequences (a child who knocks down another child’s structure is expected to help that child rebuild), 4 year olds can often handle cause-related questions that are phrased as “What would happen if?” or “What do you think made something happen?” These questions are “sound” to use because they do not require children to apply or explain scientific principles that lie beyond their understanding but depend instead on what they can see happen with their own eyes or what they can deduce from their own experience.
With this in mind, we provided the children with an assortment of clear containers and a variety of fillers. Some of the questions asked were: What will happen if you filled the container to the top? Which sound is louder, one colored rock or a container filled to the top with colored rocks? Why? What will happen if you filled the container with pom poms? What made such a loud noise? Finding the answers to these questions was accomplished by setting up simple experiments to identify the most probable cause. These experiments enable the children to try out suggested causes, compare results and then draw conclusions about the most likely reason for something’s happening, thereby introducing them to the scientific method.
The Kindergarten class’s gragger generated good learning opportunities of prediction, causality and effect.
In addition to understanding cause and effect in terms of social consequences (a child who knocks down another child’s structure is expected to help that child rebuild), 4 year olds can often handle cause-related questions that are phrased as “What would happen if?” or “What do you think made something happen?” These questions are “sound” to use because they do not require children to apply or explain scientific principles that lie beyond their understanding but depend instead on what they can see happen with their own eyes or what they can deduce from their own experience.
With this in mind, we provided the children with an assortment of clear containers and a variety of fillers. Some of the questions asked were: What will happen if you filled the container to the top? Which sound is louder, one colored rock or a container filled to the top with colored rocks? Why? What will happen if you filled the container with pom poms? What made such a loud noise? Finding the answers to these questions was accomplished by setting up simple experiments to identify the most probable cause. These experiments enable the children to try out suggested causes, compare results and then draw conclusions about the most likely reason for something’s happening, thereby introducing them to the scientific method.
The Kindergarten class’s gragger generated good learning opportunities of prediction, causality and effect.
Faculty Login
Teacher Uploads
You are not allowed to upload files to the server!'
