Understanding Social Actions

We understand by doing hands-on experiments, we can learn about cause and effect, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills in a fun and exciting way. As mentioned by Fides, I love doing experiment. Our effortful attempts in blowing balloons helps us to understand the principle of carbon released from within our bodies.

Stretching the balloons with our hands helps to make it easier for us to inflate them. This experience turns out to be a bit challenging to some. However, it does not stop us to keep on trying. 

When the reaction takes place inside a balloon, Brooks and Vivaan notice how carbon dioxide pushes against the walls of the balloon, causing it to expand. This serves as evidence that gas is being produced inside the balloon. 

The next step is to bring a candle and observe what happens when carbon is poured  over the flame. 

Emily follows the guideline to trap the air by pinching the neck of the balloon. When asked to release her finger to empty the air-filled balloon content toward the flame, she delightedly shares her giggles. 

Margo takes an initiative to bring her balloon filled with air closer to the source of flame. She engages her critical thinking to consider distance as one of the factors to extinguish the flame. 

Nora demonstrates her ability to draw a conclusion by reasoning from her observation.  From some successful experiments, Nora deduces that we're doing an experiment of carbon, which is not good air, that puts out the fire.

Understanding that carbon is inside us, this time round we take the balloon away, as a medium. In this way we attempt to directly blow our breath out to extinguish the flame.​

In this way we investigate our biological systems and its relationships in the carbon cycle. We too include non-fiction books to unpack more understanding of the relationships between our social action and current environmental issues.

During our group discussion, we start from reflecting upon our own daily actions. It fosters self-awareness and learning from mistakes. We come up with a few ideas to be our small actions such as ...

• collecting our pre-loved items to repurpose them;
• doing a community work when we go to the beach in the coming month to help collect trash in addition to having fun.

Everyday we set aside a few minutes each day to journal about our experiences or thoughts. Reflecting in drawing allows us to gain clarity, process our thoughts, and identify patterns or areas of improvements.

Including metaphor, as a form of figurative language, enables us to make social learning tangible. A metaphor is a way to imagine how one thing is the same as another thing because they have the same characteristics.

Margo refers to the words heart is broken to describe a sad emotion. The metaphors are meant to create a vivid or be a profound saying. The stronger the metaphor is, the better our intent will be received. Using metaphors to explain something helps us having a more visual picture. 

Our learning includes an action song Save the Planet dance. It encompasses our abilities to understand various concepts of directions, movements, among many other physical fitness learning experiences.

Kindest,
Children & Friends.