Science is not boring

Today we had a really exciting 1st grade science class during my student teaching. The 1st graders have been learning about the properties of solids by doing different observations and experiments. Today they were determining if objects were magnetic or not. First they had to predict what they thought would be magnetic and then test their predictions. They loved this activity! The room was filled with excitement as they tested their predictions. Students began to try all different kinds of combinations and test different theories. They tried putting paper or plastic in between the magnet and the magnetic objects. Another student tried to see how many paper clips they could get on one magnet. One student found out that the magnet stuck to the leg of the chair. Soon lots of children were walking around the room trying to find other places in the room that were magnetic. It was truly exciting to see the students exploring the materials and learning about the objects through their own questioning. It was a great example of inquiry based learning in practice. It was a direct way that I was able to see the theories that we are studying in class take place in real life classrooms. My favorite quote of the day was when one of the 1st graders said to another, "No one would say science is boring!"