The ‘Challenge’ Project

What can you do in 3 minutes?

Isabella and Adalyn were wondering about the sand timers and the idea of moving sand:

Isabella “We are thinking can we can have a race with the timer to see who is the fastest.”
Adalyn “10 minutes race and 5 minutes race.”

Isabella “And then I saw the 5-minute sand is the fastest.”
Adalyn “Because the 10 minutes were more than 5 minutes. But the 3 minutes is faster.”
Isabella “I think the 10 minutes is faster because we can count to 10 more shorter. I think because it’s fast, we can count to 10 and it’s fast.”
Adalyn “The 5 minutes and 3 minutes, it’s 2 minutes short.”

Isabella agreed.

Isabella “3 minutes is faster than 5 minutes and then 10 minutes.”

What can you do in 3 minutes? How fast is 3 minutes?

Adalyn “I can draw in 3 minutes.”
Isabella “I can run in 3 minutes, a circle outside.”
Adalyn “I can do it too.”
Isabella “I think 3 minutes is not long its so short!”
Jacob “I think 3 minutes is 100 seconds plus 200 seconds. Seconds mean you have to count.”
Isabella “You have to count 1 and then wait a little while and count another number.”
Adalyn “I think 3 minutes is three one-minutes.”

This has led to planning a race against time, to see what they could achieve in 3 minutes.

How long was 3 minutes?

We used an online timer to ‘feel’ the time pass by. The children sat patiently, thinking about the length of time that passed by.

We challenged them to think about the things they could do in 3 minutes. They drew to share their thinking:

Euno: Draw a heart, Take a photo, Talk and share 3 ideas
Isabella: Run 3 circles in the playground, Read 2 small books in the library, Put my socks on
Ethan: Go to sleep, Cooking a cookie, Eat snack
Archie: Go on a train to Africa, Come to school in 1 minute, Go to Japan in 5 minutes, Put my shoes on
Jacob: Make a paper airplane, Build a puzzle, Make a Lego car
Evan: Make a block tower, Eat lunch, Draw a house
Adalyn: Run 2 circles in the playground, Pack my backpack, Talk about a tower
Suzy: Eat an ice-cream, Build a tower with coloured blocks, Run 3 circles in the outside playground
Dahyun: Put shoes on, Draw a heart, Read 2 little bit small books
Sea: Read a book in the library, Wash your hands for lunch, Swim across the pool
Finn: Wash hands, Put on my jacket, Write my name, Put on my shoes
Riccardo: Write my name, Draw a clock, Eat a sausage
Junsu: Go a friend’s house with daddy, Read a big book in the library, Robots break the blocks

We gathered many different, interesting ideas and wondered which ones to try out. We decided to vote on each child’s ideas, using tally marks to track our data.

While discussing our next steps, we wondered if other children in the Early Years would also enjoy some of our challenges. The children believed that K2B and PreK-K1 could also do some of the challenges as they run fast and like ice cream because everyone likes ice cream!

Voting for 3 Minute Challenges!

The children have been discussing the concept of ‘time’ while engaging in play and exploration. Often, they refer to time as being ‘long’ or ‘short’.

Suzy “It only took me two minutes to draw the love heart, that is a short time.”

The children were interested in creating challenges to explore the concept of ‘time’. They were excited about the three-minute challenges they had brainstormed and voted on. We gathered to discuss the different ideas collected, noting them all down on chart paper to help us create a plan for our next steps. As the children discussed these ideas, we used drawings and words to document their thinking. We had 13 challenges altogether!

How would we decide which one to explore first?

We decided to vote on the different challenges to find the most popular. Making ice creams received the highest votes (6). The children had many different ideas about the ice cream challenge. They suggested purchasing ice creams from the café, and buying ice creams at the supermarket or McDonald’s. Having heard all the ideas, the teachers decided to encourage the children to consider the practical challenges connected with some of these ideas.

Where would we get the money for the ice creams?
What about the children who have different allergies?
What options for flavours are there at McDonald’s

The teachers decided to stretch the children further, to encourage them to consider alternate opportunities for learning.

Does anyone know how to make ice creams?

After some thought the children tapped into their prior knowledge and experiences from previous years. Isabella and Evan recalled making ice pops at school. They explained the process of making watermelon ice pops, preparing the fruit and using moulds and popsicle sticks to make the ice creams.

The children were excited about making their own popsicles. They discussed several ideas, including the flavours they could choose. Considering the many opportunities this project may have for the children to apply their understanding of concepts through their experiences and play, the teachers agreed to support the children in preparing for the challenge if they could come up with a plan for their next steps. They would need to solve some practical obstacles to make their ice creams and carry out the challenge. They would need to decide and plan how to purchase the items, the process they needed to follow to make the ice creams and how they were going to organise the challenge.

We wonder how the children would:

plan and follow through to make the ice creams (process)
document their thinking and ideas so others can understand and follow their process (representation)
consider and plan for the safe use of materials, resources and tools (safety, responsibility)
consider how to include their friends and the community in their challenges (inclusion)
collaborates with students, parents and other teachers on learning (collaboration)

The Grade 5 Three-minute Challenge

The Grade 5 students were excited to hear about our three-minute challenges and decided to plan challenges for their K2 buddies.

We joined Grade 5 outside the courtyard to play some of the games they had planned for us. The children in K2 rotated around the different stations, attempting to win points and some stickers as they completed the challenges.

The children reflected on the day’s events, sharing their highlights.

Suzy “We played a lot of games.”
Archie “We played tag. I like the tag game the most. Octopus tag with grade 5 buddies in 3 minutes challenge.”
Junsoo “We played ball game, and I like it the most.”
Riccardo “I like the ball game, because it’s challenging but I did a great job and I didn’t be tagged by the ball.”
Isabella “For the hot potato game, when the person counted down to 1, and someone was holding the ball, then he will be out of the game.”
Euno “I like the octopus game. Octopus game me run to the end and buddy catch people. They didn’t catch us. Then, I don’t know who wins.”
Ethan “I like the hot potato game because it is so fun.”
Adalyn “I like the octopus tag and I also like the one that has patterns on the ground and you need to follow the patterns to pop the bubbles. And the beanbag game is also interesting.”

Isabella “I like the pattern game the most because you can race your buddies and it’s easy for me.”
Suzy “I also like the pattern game because I like the bubbles. The bubbles were on the ground. You stand on it and it pops.”
Ethan “I like the tiptoes walking part and it was so much fun.”
Evan “The hot potato game looks fun because I like the ball game.”
Suzy “I did the pattern game in 3 minutes.”
Isabella “I also did the pattern game, the hot potato and the red light green light and I also played octopus tag and throwing the sand bag in 3 minutes. It was easy for me. It was a long time.”

Suzy “It was a short time, I did it in 3 minutes.”
Sea “I like the octopus game because they don’t tag me. I ran fast.”
Dahyun “I like the tag game because it was fun. I won 3 times. We got a sticker.”

We wonder how this experience will help them plan for the challenges they want to set for their Grade 5 buddies.