Our plan for Kindergarten this year is to explore different media each quarter, giving them an opportunity to experience and experiment with a variety of materials. The new group of five-year-olds entering school have been starting with sand and water.
We started with dry sand. It didn’t take long to discover that it doesn’t stick together very well. After pairing it with water they started to build and create. Some students focused their attention on free-form building; others packed containers with wet sand and dumped it out into a shape. Others started experimenting with how to cut masses of sand. Anyone who built sand castles as a child remembers the fun and frustration of trying to create a vision with such a temperamental medium.
As a final project for this unit, the students will be making sand sculptures with sand and glue, giving their structures a little more permanency.
One thing we quickly learned about sand and water is that you don’t want wet sand sitting around for long in the classroom — it gets pretty smelly!
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About Aaron Vanderwerff
Aaron Vanderwerff is passionate about engaging students in making and independent inquiry in the classroom, particularly students underrepresented in STEM fields. Vanderwerff currently oversees design and making programs at Lighthouse, which includes coaching teachers and facilitating professional development. This effort came out of his making class, which culminates in students exhibiting their independent projects at the Maker Faire. Vanderwerff has taught high school science in the Bay Area for the past ten years. Before joining Lighthouse, he taught ninth-grade physics and was science department chair at San Lorenzo High School, and taught math in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso.
