Spinning Light
Week of 5/19/14
Catie Stone & Charlene Hughes
The children have been exploring the
Lazy Susan and how objects move when they spin it. I wanted the children to
explore how they could balance or keep the different materials from falling off
of the Lazy Susan when it was spun. This week we used light spheres on the Lazy
Susan where the children were excited about watching the lights spin on the
Lazy Susan. I wanted to see how the children would keep the lights from falling
off while the Lazy Susan was spinning.
Ali
had first placed one light sphere on the Lazy Susan and then spun it. The light
fell off. Ali had laughed and retrieved the light and placed two more lights on
the Lazy Susan. He had one light in the middle and the other two closer to the
edge. Ali spun the Lazy Susan and two lights fall off, the one in the middle
had stayed. “Ali, why didn’t that light fall off?” I had asked. Ali then placed
the two lights that had fallen next to the light that was still in the middle
of the Lazy Susan. Jad had been spinning the Lazy Susan repeatedly with the
several lights on it. Each time he had spun it, all of the lights would fall
off. Abby had placed a few lights in a plastic container and was shaking it.
Jad had watched Abby and then found a container and placed the lights that were
on the Lazy Susan inside the container. Jad then placed the container in the
center of the Lazy Susan with the lights inside. Jad spun it and the lights did
not move. I think Jad had been getting frustrated when the lights repeatedly
fell off the Lazy Susan. He seemed to have been inspired by what he saw Abby do
and it worked!
We have been exploring the Lazy
Susan and how to balance objects while they are spinning on it. What if it was
the objects themselves spinning? How would they keep the objects from falling?
What will they do to balance a spinning object on a stationary surface?
