BSO Kindergarten

This amazing group of Kindergartners has been with us since the beginning of Covid. So what better way to wrap up our year than by demolishing our Covid piñata!!!

Wrapping up the MOST AMAZING year ever with our Yearbook Signing Party! What an absolutely incredible group of thinkers, philosophers, scientists, creators, readers, mathematicians, social scientists, friends, and fantastic humans. We will miss you dearly and can’t wait to see the AMAZING you bring the world!

Chag Sameach!

As a STEM class, we explore engineering solutions to problems - not only for humans but sometimes for animals as well. Oysters are sometimes referred to as ‘ecosystem engineers’ as they create large reefs made up of thousands of oyster shells. Oyster reefs buffer coasts from waves, reduce erosion, and create calmer waters that support marsh growth and waterfowl breeding.

But that’s not all - A new discovery by scientists focuses on the special ‘glue’ that oysters produce that allows them to bind together. In fact, they produce two chemically distinct versions of this glue - one produced by the larvae (spat) and a different one as the oyster grows. This incredible adhesive is being investigated by scientists for its potential to act as a wet setting surgical medical suture for humans!

As we explore oysters, we built our own oyster bed today with shells. We were careful to place the shells in a vertical position with their top to the sky, as filter feeding oysters naturally place themselves under the waves.

Nature’s chemistry at work!

A key concept in engineering is ‘distributed load’ - spreading a weight over a length, area or volume. For structural engineers, this means spreading the load over more than one floor joist. For the human body, the more area available for the force to be spread out over, the more force a bone like the femur can support. (An adult femur - leg bone - is 19 inches but can support adults well over 500 pounds.)

We didn’t have floor joists, but we had plastic cups and cardboard squares! A single plastic cup is easily (and with great entertainment 😜) smashed by a child. But by using several cups and a cardboard square to spread out the weight, we can easily support 50 pounds - if balanced evenly. If the weight is at all unbalanced, it can come tumbling down.

Think of this the next time you see a row of cars crossing a bridge. Applied physics is all around us. Point it out to your child every day and ask yourself, how does that all work?

The kindergarten is learning about economics, and started their journey by considering trade and barter. Everything has a value, but the value is determined by the individual and what the marketplace will bear. The children divided into teams and each took a special red paper clip down the hall to trade. One team was able to uptrade their paper clip as a 1 penny item to a much coveted extra large superball, worth 5 dollars. On the way, they exchanged for a roll of tape that did not interest them, but was useful for a larger trade later.
A second team took their 1 cent paper clip and uptraded to a five dollar item which they really couldn’t use. So they ‘down traded’ the item to a couple pieces of coveted candy that were only worth 25 cents - but was much more valuable in their eyes. ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’
Pretty neat conceptual thinking for our kindergarteners on their foray into economics!

Mechanical energy is a type of energy an object has due to its motion or position. As we explore engineering, technology, and the innovations of Archimedes, we explored potential energy and kinetic energy.
Potential energy is found in rubber bands, catapults and frog legs. Kinetic energy can be demonstrated as a football lineman runs through the defense - the energy an object has because of its motion.

We explored with rubber bands, and two balls that were identical except for the shock absorption of one - the kids had to guess which ball would bounce, and which would land flat.

Finally, we built our own catapults, choosing sticks of a variety of sizes, and changing the position of the fulcrum point to see how that would change the potential energy. Archimedes was a master of this technology, defining the exact mathematical configurations to maximize the effects of the catapults.

Technology and engineering in action!

Tubishvat is the ‘birthday of the trees.’ But what does this mean, and why do we care? In Judaic teaching, fruit cannot be eaten from a tree that is three years old or younger. Fruit from a four year old tree is for G-d. Fruit from trees 5 years old and older may be consumed by us. Because no one knows the birth ‘day’ of each and every tree, we use TuBishvat as the day on which we add one year to each tree’s age - so we know when we can eat the fruit.

A Naturalist’s trick is to estimate the age of a tree by using hand spans. If you encircle the tree with hands placed side by side, you can estimate the age by multiplying the number of hands by 5. So if it takes the hands of five children to reach around the tree, we can estimate the tree to be 50 years old.

We tested this theory by finding a cut stump, and counting the rings. We counted 62 rings, and proved our theory when the hands of six kids fit around the stump!

Judaic studies, math and science in one lesson!

As Archimedes said, ‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.’

Here, children are exploring the law of the lever and fulcrum which was geometrically proven by Archimedes. No amount of force will allow the students to move a heavy weight, until they adjust the position of the fulcrum. With the fulcrum placed close to the object, the students can move 40-65 pounds with a single hand.

Engineering is about the forces and laws of physics. Technology is the application of those laws through the machines we make to ease our work.