Group Learning Experience Planning Sheet:

Student Name: Jessica Edwards Course Code: ECS4070

Age Group: 4 to 5 years. Date: October 26th, 2017

Learning Experience: Science, STEM and Building Activity- Marbleworks Marble Tracks
Programming Purpose:

On this day at my placement site we had a special event where we opened our doors to a
neighbouring classroom and the children had the opportunity to explore each other classrooms
and interact with each other. When I entered our neighbouring classroom myself and two other
students from my placement classroom noticed a new toy they had not seen before. The toy
was a marble track building toy known as marble works. Children can connect the pieces of
track that contain different shapes and items attached to them, such as windmill-like wheels
and wavy pieces. Together these pieces create interesting and unique tracks for marbles to
travel down. This lead to a collaborative building experience between six children from both
classrooms where they were able to share ideas, explore cause and effect, and learn about
different physics related aspects of the toy such as gravity.
Objective:
The children will:
1) Explore cause and effect when creating different paths for the marbles to travel down.
2) Practice social skills when working together to create different marble tracks.
Including sharing pieces, sharing ideas and discussing any challenges in created their
pieces.
3) Practice fine motor skills when picking up marble and when linking marble works
pieces together.
Materials Used:

Marbles
Marble Works Plastic Marble Track Pieces
Set Up:

Shelf

Marbles

Marble Works Bin

Carpet

Marble Works Plastic Track Pieces

Emergent Activity

1. I joined two students from my current placement classroom on the carpet in our
neighboring classroom. The students pointed out the marble works toys on the shelf
beside the carpet and we began building our marble track structure.
2. The children used base pieces to act as support for the bottom of their structures.
3. We discussed how this made the structure more stable and tried to knock down a tower
with, and without a base piece. The children found that the bases helped their towers
become less wobbly.
4. The students then began to add pieces to their structures. As they built the students
formed into their own groups to build structures together.
5. The children continued to add on to their structures until all of the pieces of marble
track were used.
6. At this point the children began experimenting with the first structures they built.
7. One group noticed that they had put a piece on that stopped their marble from being
able to continue to travel downwards. This gave us the opportunity to discuss gravity.
The marble couldnt keep moving downward if the piece didn't have a lower point for
the marble to move to.
8. After the children changed up their designs to ensure that the marbles could move they
began to have races to see whose structure marbles could travel down the fastest.
9. The children continued to race marbles on their tracks and sometimes switched groups
or marbles to see how this changed the speed of their marble tracks.
10. After the children finished playing with the materials we pulled the pieces apart and
put the marbles and track pieces back in their appropriate bin before placing them back
on the classroom shelf.
Learning Strategy #1
Paraphrase Reflections

As the children were creating their structures they learned a lot of thing about the nature of
their materials through trial and error. When the children were stuck, but made statements that
could help them come to a new conclusion about how to solve their problem I used
paraphrasing of their ideas to give them a clue about their next steps. Example:

Child A: The piece goes up, the marble wont move!

Myself: The marble isnt moving right now because the piece its on goes upward.
How can we fix this?
Learning Strategy #2
Behaviour Reflections

As another way to help guide the children towards problem solving, I used behavioural
reflections. When a child modified their structure in some way, or helped another child in a
positive manner I used behaviour reflections to encourage them to continue to do so. Example:

When the children added their bases to their structures when they noticed they were
wobbling I stated. _______ I see youre testing a piece to see if it stops your structure
from moving, can you tell me about this?

Overall Evaluation
What worked during this experience? Why?

Using the different pieces helped the children experiment with speed, gravity and other
elements of physics through trial and error. For example the children learned that
marbles cannot move upwards on slanted pieces of track, so they needed to be placed
with the lower side further away from where the marble was entering the piece.

The children were able to create different mini activities within this activity such as
racing using their marbles, attempting to build the tallest tower possible, and
attempting to make two structures that could connect to each other in the middle.

The children were very cooperative within the group they formed. They discussed their
designs and shared idea with each other.

What did not work during this experience? Why?

Lack materials made it difficult to make more elaborate marble tracks. This caused
some interpersonal conflicts among the children especially because some of the
children were visiting from our classroom. Many of the children who used the marble
works on a daily basis seemed to feel like their activity was being invaded by their
 visitors.

What might you have done differently?

As the children got the hang of using the track pieces and understood the basics of how
to construct their marble track buildings, I would have liked to have spent more time
exploring the classroom and helping other students with other projects.

Help the children break into more even groups to avoid some children from gaining an
excessive amount of track pieces when compared to the other children working with
the marbleworks tracks.