I was going through the DCSF schemes of work for KS1 and KS2 Science today and found out something rather interesting. Children don’t know much. I mean, seriously. We take so much for granted that we forget that, at some point, we didn’t know quite a lot. For example, some children may think that the sun moves across the sky in one direction one day and the other direction the next day. It’s easy to understand the misconception that light is just a “thing” and it doesn’t really have a source – it’s just there. But there’s a lot of stuff kids just don’t know. [Having found the DCSF website, I am heartbroken to find that all the stuff I copied for two hours is actually available as free pdf files. Bugger it. Ah well.]
Year 1 did a lesson on “estimating capacities” this morning. For example, “How many teaspoons of sand would it take to fill a plastic cup?” and “How many straws long is the table?” Apparently standard units are only taught in Year 2, although I’m sure most of the class would know their height in centimetres. The lesson started by the children learning what “estimating” is (“making a sensible guess” is the definition they were taught) and, horror of horrors, they had to guess my age. The range was 13 years to 61 years. (For completeness, I can say that indeed my age does fall in that range.)
Year 1 also had to grow cress in little pots on a windowsill today. Except their teacher forgot to buy cress seeds. So supergirl here went to the local garden centre at lunchtime and demanded, “I want all your cress seeds – now!” and a scared looking 17-year-old ran off to get them for me. Supergirl saved the day!
But what intrigued me the most today was a drawing a fairly bright boy did this afternoon. He drew a stereotypical house in garden with green grass and a blue line across the top that’s supposed to be the sky. But it was the way he drew the sun that caught my attention. He drew the standard yellow circle in a corner of the page but, instead of drawing beams coming from it (I say beams, but children normally just draw dashes and don’t really know why), he drew a block of yellow going from the sun to the house. And then I noticed that the colours on the side of the house that would be in shadow were in fact coloured in with darker colours. I mean, I just couldn’t believe it. I thought the concept of light having beams would be alien to a six-year-old… wow.
And I admire teachers for not showing favouritism – it’s easier said then done…
Posted by penglet 