Exploring Wood

Our current science kit that we are exploring is Wood and Paper.  We are focusing on wood at the moment.  In this kit children learn about wood and trees, properties of wood, how different things are made of wood, and how people can change wood.  Children have observed closely different things made of wood, compared and contrasted different types of wood, learned about items in our world that are made from wood and today we learned one way to change wood. 

Each child was given a piece of sandpaper and a wood block.  We talked about how when you buy a wood chair or blocks you can't just go to the woods and pick these things out.  There is a process that occurs from the time that the object begins as a tree and then ends up as a chair.  Children made observations of thier block prior to sanding.  We then spent some time sanding our wood and changing the shape and feel.  Children found that when they sanded fast, they created more sawdust.  They noticed that sandpaper worked best for changing the wood because it was rough.  They also noticed how smooth they could make the wood and how they could round the corners. After our woodworkers spent time sanding, we reflected on what we saw and documented this in our Thinking Notebooks.