- faster
- incline
- move
- ramp
- steeper
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening: SL.PK.MA.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Language: L.PK.MA.1 Demonstrate use of oral language in informal everyday activities.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Language Development/Expressive Language Uses language to express ideas and needs.
Social Emotional Development/Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy Identifies personal characteristics, preferences, thoughts, and feelings.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2 Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
English Language Arts/Language 3 Communicate personal experiences or interests.
Talk Together: Steep Stories
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: Objects that slide are more likely to move on steeper inclines, and both rolling and sliding objects move faster down steeper inclines; An object placed on an inclined plane will roll, slide, or stay put; The motion and speed of a rolling or sliding object is affected by the texture of the object and the texture of the surface on which it is rolling or sliding
ELA Focus Skills: Listening and Speaking, Vocabulary
Talk with children about their experiences with varying the steepness of any ramps they’ve built over the past few weeks. Ask children to describe what they have noticed about the way a ball moves when the ramp is made steeper. Use photos or videos you’ve taken of children’s ramp building explorations to help guide discussion.
Open the discussion to any other experiences children may have had with going down steep inclines. Help them think about hills they may live near or sledding trips they have taken with their family. Tell children of a time you went sledding or rolling down a hill. Then ask children if they have been sledding or rolling down a hill. If so, ask, Can you remember what it felt like when they were going down a steep hill? Can you describe what it was like?
Guide children to think about how objects and people, move faster down steeper inclines. Explain that you pick up speed as you go down a ramp—so you are going faster at the bottom of the incline than you are when you are at the top. Say, This is harder to see with a ball on a ramp but easier to feel on a sled.