- ball
- marbles
- paper towel tube
- sweater
- toy animal
- bumpy
- heavy
- light
- obstacle
- rough
- smooth
- texture
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.1: Demonstrate use of oral language in informal everyday activities.
Mathematics/Measurement and Data/PK.MD.MA.1: Recognize the attributes of length, area, weight, and capacity of everyday objects using appropriate vocabulary (e.g., long, short, tall heavy, lights, big, small, wide, narrow).
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: Making Obstacles
© 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; 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; When a rolling ball hits an obstacle, it will stop or slow down and its direction may change
ELA Focus Skills: Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Talk about the weights and textures of different materials with children to help them think about how they might use them in their obstacle courses. Have children touch the materials and prompt them to use vocabulary such as rough, bumpy, and smooth to describe the textures. Use words like heavy, heavier, and heaviest and light, lighter, lightest to describe weight.
Ask children what they have used in the past as obstacles, and how these materials might be different. For example, ask,
- What happens when you use an obstacle that is light, like this paper towel tube? One that is heavy, like this toy animal?
You may want to replay the live-action clip PEEP and the Big Wide World “Building Ramps” to help children think of different ways to construct more complicated obstacles, such as balancing balls on the top of paper towel tubes. Ask, Do you have any ideas for making new obstacles after watching the video? You may also want to bring children to the Technology Center to watch “Homemade Hills” to spark discussion about the textures of materials. Talk with children about how the children in the video discuss the textures of the blanket and the toy and how the textures affect the way the toy moves down the blanket.