I SEE MYSELF
By
Vicki Cobb
An analysis of
the text with respect to educational objectives.
P.4-5. Look in the mirror. Who do you see? Your very
own self, that's who! Now suppose that there were no mirrors in the world.
What could you do to see yourself? The
purpose of this opening statement is to engage the child in an egocentric
activity since very young children are very self-absorbed.
It is also an opportunity for divergent thinking giving the reader
an opportunity to think of alternative possibilities.
P. 6-7 Look at the glass in a picture frame.
A shiny door knob makes your face fat. How about the door of a shiny black
car or a puddle on the street? The purpose of this is to extend the concept that a mirror is
not the only place where you can see yourself.
Extending a concept broadens the reader’s comprehension and fleshes
out understanding.
P.8-9. Keep looking everywhere you go. Can
you see yourself in your mom’s sweater? Or on a page in this book?
Or in the grass? You can
see the sweater and the page and the grass.
But you can’t see yourself. This
also broadens the concept–you can see yourself in some things but not
in all things. To really understand a concept you have to not only understand what
it is but also what it isn’t.
P. 10-11 You see yourself only in shiny things.
A mirror is the shiniest and the best thing for seeing yourself.
This is a generalization about the previous activities–it is
a rule about the class of things that allow you to see yourself as set
apart from the class of things that doesn’t let you see yourself. Generalizations
are how we make sense out of the world.
P.12-13 But you need something besides a mirror to
see yourself. Know what it is? Here's a hint. Take a mirror into a closet and close the door. Can you see yourself in the dark?
This is a motivational
set up for a discovery– one a four-year-old is capable of making. Also this kind of direct conversation with the reader is
called metadiscourse and is a motivational way of writing.
P.14-15 In order to see yourself, in order
to see anything, you must have light. You see when light reaches
your eyes. When there is no light, you see
only darkness. Enter a new idea–in addition
to a shiny surface you need light to see yourself. This is not intuitive and can be a profound
discovery by a small child.
P.16-17 There are lots of kinds of light.
There’s the sun, of course. And there are electric light bulbs and flourescent
lights and neon lights and candle light and flashlights. This extends
and reinforces the idea of many kinds of light–something most kids know
but perhaps haven’t thought about much.
I have not yet wandered too far from what they already know–just
made them think about it– a time-worn teaching strategy.
P.18-19 If you looked at yourself in a mirror
in all these lights could you see yourself? You bet! This
is a conclusion that suggests more activity but doesn’t insult their intelligence
by asking them to do something that’s obvious.
P. 20-21 How does a mirror work? Mirrors catch light
and bounce it someplace else. Take a small hand mirror and a flashlight. Shine the light on the
mirror. See where you can send
the bounced light. Can you light
up the wall? Can you light up a picture on the wall? Can you aim the light
where you want it to go?
This is an open-ended activity that nicely demonstrates that
light bounces. It’s also lots of fun.
P. 22-23 You can't see light bounce.
You have to imagine how it bounces. I
have no problem asking kids to imagine but I don’t stop there.
I give them something concrete to do as a model for light bouncing.
Let’s say a ray of light is like a ball.
Go bounce a ball. If you throw the ball straight down, it bounces
right back up to you. If you throw
it on a slant, it bounces away at the same slant. When you bounce a ball
on a smooth floor it bounces perfectly. I
have been told that kids this age are fascinated with balls and how they
bounce. This is a very age-appropriate activity.
P. 24-25 What happens if you bounce a ball
in your room with toys all over the floor?
You can never tell where it will bounce.
If you threw a bunch of ping-pong balls down in your messy room
they would scatter, bouncing in all directions.
The art is crucial here but this is a lot of fun to imagine and even
to do. It is not beyond a child’s intellectual capability.
P.26-27 A mirror is like a smooth floor for
light. This is a perfect analogy. It gives them a new way to think about how a mirror bounces light.
When a ray of light strikes a mirror it make a perfect
bounce. A mirror handles a gazillion rays of light at once. And every one makes a perfect bounce every
time.
P. 28-29 Light doesn’t only bounce off mirrors.
This is a new idea but it relates to their experience of bouncing. It bounces off every object you see. When light rays bounce off this page or your
mom’s sweater, they scatter in many different directions. Some of the
scattered light reaches your eyes. That’s
why you can see it. But scattered
light alone won’t let you see yourself. I
think I’ve set up the premises well to lead to this conclusion.
P. 30-31 Scattered light bounces off your face. When it bounces into your mom’s eyes, she can
see you, but she can’t see herself. Your
face is not a mirror. There is a precedent for this spread from the previous spread.
I’m writing this like a narrative leading to the conclusion on
page 32. To fragment it into isolated activities or to dwell on one idea
ad nauseum would seriously undermine the narrative thrust of this story.
P. 32. When scattered light from your face hits a
mirror, it bounces perfectly from the mirror right into your eyes. That’s
why you see yourself. Yay! The last sentence
in this book is the point of the book, in case you missed it.
I Fall Down
By Vicki Cobb
An analysis of the text with respect to educational
objectives
P. 4-7 Know what happens when you trip? You fall down!
Know what happens when you spill your milk? It drips down. The purpose of these opening statements is
to connect to the reader by reminding them of
experiences for which there are strong emotional connections. Young
children are very egocentric and memory is enhanced by strong emotions
including negative ones. Falling
down and spilling milk are very common experiences.
P. 8-9 Throw a ball up into the air. Watch what happens. It goes up for a short time, then it falls
down! Try tossing other things
up in the air. Your mom’s keys. A block. When
something falls, which way does it fall? Does it ever fall up? The purpose of this spread is to engage the
child in activities for careful observation of something they are familiar
with (throwing things up in the air and watching them fall) but may not
have paid attention to in the past. I
am asking them to think as a scientist would think but well within their
intellectual capabilities.
P. 10-11 Know
what makes things fall? It’s a force called gravity. As long
as you are on earth you can’t get away from it. Gravity is always pulling things. Know which way? Down, down,
down.
Here I am introducing scientific terminology–the word “gravity.”
When kids observe something, they want and need to know
the name for it. That’s why little
kids can learn the long a difficult names of dinosaurs. I always introduce technical terms carefully, when they
will be used repeatedly in future communication. There are too
many books that give technical language gratuitously–a turn-off to the
fun of learning.
P. 12-13 You
can see how gravity pulls. You will need a jar of molasses or honey and
a spoon. Take a spoonful of molasses or honey and hold the spoon straight
up and down it so that the goo drips back into the jar. Watch it drip. One of the problems of observing the effect of gravity is that it happens
very quickly. This is a fun activity where gravity has a slow effect on
a material. A teacher might try to get the kids to describe what happens.
The goo stretches and gets longer and longer. It becomes a ribbon, streaming into the jar.
Gravity pulls the molasses or honey from the spoon back into the
jar. Often young children understand what they
observe without the language to explain it. This gives them that language and it gives the reader an opportunity
to ask the child how they would describe something they observe.
P. 14-15 Do
some things fall faster than others? Try it and see. Hold a penny and a key in one hand. Open your hand so they both
start falling at the same time. Listen
and watch as they hit the floor. Did
either the penny or the key win the race or is it a tie? The fact that the acceleration
of gravity is independent of weight is non-intuitive– a mistake adults made for thousands of years before Galileo
in the 16th century (and still make). Kids have more open and flexible minds. This activity is a lot of fun and adults will be amazed how quickly
kids accept the observation that falling races are ties.
P. 16-17 Have lots of dropping races. Things
fall so fast it’s hard to tell if there is a winner or loser. But no matter
whether objects are big or small it seems that it’s always a tie. The
only time you have a clear loser is when you drop something that the wind
could easily blow away such as a feather or a tissue.
You see air fighting gravity only with very light objects.
The trick in science is to see the rule and
understand why exceptions to the rule are exceptions. Air resistance is present in all the dropping races but with dense
objects this resistance is so small that it can’t be seen. Children are capable of understanding this
kind of thinking.
P. 18-19
If there were no air, you would find that gravity pulls everything at
the same speed. Astronauts proved
this on the moon, where there is not air. Every dropping race was a tie. Amazing but true! Here I am asking kids to imagine a place that
has no air resistance. There are
video tapes available that show this experiment on the moon. This spread also opens the discussion of conditions
on other bodies in our solar system. If you wish you can use this as a jumping off point to explore the
different gravities of moons and planets–we would weigh 1/6 as much on
the moon, for example.
P. 20-21 Does
everything land with the same force? Or do some things hit harder than
others? Try not to make
this a rhetorical question. Ask
your reader what they really think from experience.
The picture gives a clue. Here’s a way to find out. Have someone drop a dry sponge into your hand
from about a foot above it. Next
try a small bar of soap. Which
hits your hand harder, the sponge or the soap? The point
of this activity is to observe that the soap hits harder than the sponge,
although they are approximately the same size.
Notice, in the next spread that I don’t give them the answer. It’s important that they observe it for themselves.
P. 22-23 Try
dropping lots of things into your hand. Soon you will discover that some things hit
harder than others. Now hold the
bar of soap in one hand and the sponge in the other.
Which is heavier, the sponge or the soap? Move your hands up and down to help feel the difference. Kids are very interested in ranking –the beginning of measurement and
quantifying observation–which is very important in science.
Here I am introducing a concept they already know—“heaviness”— but perhaps not in this
context. I will tie it together
at the end of the book. Hang on, we’re getting there.
P.
24-25 Your hands stop the sponge and the soap from falling to the ground. But you can still feel gravity’s pull on the
soap and sponge when you hold them in your hands. This pull is called weight. “Weight”
is a technical term in science and has a very precise meaning. I introduce this term now, at the appropriate
time.
P. 26-27You can see if one object is heavier
than another without letting either of them fall.
Here’s how. Get two rubber
bands the same size. Tie one of
your shoes to one rubber band. Tie
one of your parent’s shoes to the other rubber band.
Here I am introducing another way to measure
heaviness or weight–by seeing how much a rubber band stretches.
P. 28-29 Lift both shoes by the rubber bands. Which rubber band stretches more? The heavier shoe stretches the rubber band
more. Each rubber band acts like
a scale to measure weight. This principle also applies to the stretching of springs used
in simple scales in the supermarket. Only in that case there is a spring
being stretched instead of a rubber band.
But when there is no weight present both the rubber band and the
spring return to their original unstretched size. Again, this is a non-intuitive
concept known as Hooke’s Law. I’m
laying a lot of foundation for learning physical science in the future
in these apparently simple and obvious concepts.
P. 30-31 Your weight is a measure of how hard
you fall when you fall down. How much do you weigh?
How much does your mother or father weigh? The more you weigh the harder you fall. Finally I’m linking weight with falling.
One of the primary concepts in physics is the difference between
weight–a measure of how strongly gravity pulls on you–and mass. No matter where you are in the universe your
mass remains the same. On earth,
we measure our mass by our weight and often think of them as the same
thing. When you go on a diet, technically speaking
you want to lose mass and that shows up as a loss of weight.
P. 32-33 But you don’t have to fall in order
to weigh yourself. A scale tells
you how hard you fall–without you falling at all! So simply get on a scale. Yay! Getting a big idea is definitely worth a cheer or two. In the
history of science, these big ideas– that the acceleration of gravity
is a constant, that gravity is a force of attraction between all bodies
of matter in the universe, and
that the bigger you are the harder you fall— is the brainchild of none other than Sir Isaac Newton. And now the child has a sense of this!
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