- cardboard and plastic tubes (cut in half lengthwise)
- marbles
- tubes (plastic)
- hill
- ramp
- roll
- sand
- track
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening: SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
MA Draft STE Standards:
Physical Sciences/Motion and Stability; Forces and Interaction/PS2.A: Plan and carry out investigations of the behaviors of moving things.
Head Start Outcomes:
Approaches to Learning/Initiative and Curiosity: Demonstrates flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness in approaching tasks and activities.
Approaches to Learning/Cooperation: Plans, initiates, and completes learning activities with peers.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Classifies, compares, and contrasts objects, events, and experiences.
Science Knowledge/Scientific Skills and Method: Uses senses and tools, including technology, to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
Science and Technology/Physical Sciences 21: Explore and describe various actions that can change an object’s motion such as pulling, pushing, twisting, rolling, and throwing.
Science and Technology/Technology and Engineering 23: Explore and describe a wide variety of natural and man-made materials through sensory experiences.
Sand Hills and Ramps
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care. All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Fine Motor Skills, Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Fill the Sensory Table with sand (or other material) and have children use materials in the sand to make an obstacle course. Encourage them to make hills to roll marbles and other balls down. Have them use the tubing materials to create ramps and tracks.
Let children freely explore the materials to make ramps, hills, and slides. Guide them to use key vocabulary as they share their explorations.
Guide children to compare what happens when objects slide down the sand hill versus the plastic or cardboard ramps.