Week 2 Day 2 Gravity

After Gratitude Circle and a game of “Warm wind blows for anyone who….” , they started the first part of a Pendulum Art project. They painted their backgrounds in watercolor paint. While drying, we continued our discussion of gravity theories by exploring Newton and Einstein’s theories. I did a quick demo of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity with a piece of stretchy fabric and a heavy ball to represent the Sun so they could see the concept of the curvature of space and lighter balls as planets orbiting the Sun. Then we explored the hierarchy of celestial bodies (Moon around Earth, Planets around Sun, Sun around the center of they Milky Way containing Sagittarius A, then our galaxy around The Great Attractor, The Great Attractor traveling toward the Shapley Supercluster, and beyond unknown).  Next we played a Gravity History Relay where they had to find Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and Einstein and match them to their theory of gravity. Then we took a snack break and continued adding onto their original play. After the obstacle course, we split into 3 groups and rotated through 3 stations (one was finishing their pendulum artwork, another did slip and slide and the other played Defy Gravity- hacky sacks or balloons for younger kids). I encouraged them to create their own gravity themed games with the balloons and hacky sacks too. Then we ate lunch and hiked to the creek. During creek time, some explorers made more clay creations, some made a dam and others looked for fish, crawfish, whirligig beetles, etc.