Our world is a big place with many types of buildings, vehicles, and objects that help us live in it. All of these objects are made of materials; from metal and minerals, to composites and ceramics. The Kindergartners have been learning about these in a unit called “Materials in Our World”.
The first material that they investigated was wood. They compared 5 types of wood, cedar, pine, bass, plywood and particle board. They discovered that wood comes from trees and factories mill it so that we can use it build things. They discovered what happens when wood gets wet. One of their projects with wood had them figuring out how many paperclips it would take to make a piece of wood sink. They also changed the shape of wood with sand paper and learned that they can take saw dust comes in different sizes by comparing the shavings.
They made a mixture of sawdust and wood shavings and then learned what happens when it is put in water. They then strained out the water and learned what waterlogged wood is. They also learned how to make particle board by using resin (made out of cornstarch and water) and the mixture of wood shavings and sawdust, And they made plywood by gluing thin strips of wood together.
It is amazing that God created so many materials and gives us the ability to use them to help create things; just as He created us!