Interactive Science | Clay Atoms-Taming Our Fear Of The Invisible

If you asked each of your students what an atom is, what would they say? Most students are uncomfortable with the concept of atoms because they mistakenly believe that since atoms are so small they must be hard to understand. This fun activity will disprove that as students use clay to mold protons, neutrons, and electrons that they’ll combine to make atoms. It won’t be long into this activity before students will be saying to themselves “Is that all there is to it?” FREE Teacher Notes preview

Credibility

Imagine this- the bell rings at the beginning of class and you immediately begin lecturing. Is anyone listening? Unless you’re a phenomenal speaker the answer for most of us would be no. You first have to build credibility with them, which is to give them a reason to listen. With it, you’ve got their attention because they understand the purpose. Without it, you will have trouble making any activity meaningful.

And you have to keep repeating this every single day. It’s almost like you’re a salesman (in this case you’re selling concepts and ideas). In our approach, the Interactive hands-on activities is what we use to get students to “buy into” the lesson. These activities soften their minds, gets them to put away distracting thoughts, and brings them all to a common place where you can teach to everyone.

All Fun?

Being interactive is important, but we want to do more than just entertain your students. The neat thing is that after experiencing a good demonstration, students actually crave a good explanation. That’s why our teacher notes strongly emphasize you being mentally prepared. You should never walk into your classroom not having a clue what you’re doing that day. If that’s your habit, you might occasionally have a good day of learning, but you and your students are missing out on many more.

Step 1, then, is going in with knowing what you’re doing. And step 2 then would be deciding what kinds of things you’ll say during the lesson. If you seldom give thought to your words before a lesson, try it and see what happens. Many of our lessons include an example back-and-forth dialogue between the teacher and students (based on actual words said when the lesson was presented) and other reminders about getting your mind ready. Everyone wants to be part of a great lesson, but often it’s the unseen work and mental preparation that make it successful.

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