Creating Hypothesis

Recently my boys have taken their already large love of Dinos to a new level. We've been visiting Dinosaur Museums, watching Dinosaur Train, and playing with our figurines pretty much non stop. One of the things I LOVE about Dinosaur Train is that they talk about making a hypothesis, using what you know to figure out something you don't, and how to use deductive reasoning, and, yeah, I'm a big fan of Mr. Conductor too. 

One day my boys were playing outside, digging in the yard with our neighbors and Henrik and his friend ran over as fast as they could. "WE FOUND A BONE!" At first my neighbor and I were grossed out and completely shocked that they would have found a bone, but at a closer glance we realized that it was just a broken piece of PVC piping. We didn't tell the boys. Instead, we just asked what they thought it was and why. The neighbor boy suggested that it was a Dinosaur bone and Henrik was confused, "I don't think it's a dinosaur bone, it's too small. I mean, how did a big dinosaur get in that small hole we digged." 

As we explained that bones could be smaller and it could be part of a larger animal, they decided to dig for more. After they were unsuccessful for a good 20 more minutes, Henrik came back with a paper, pen and magnifying glass and from the pictures, you can see why I was so thrilled! He did this all on his own!!

 

 

Every day we have been working on asking questions when we have demands for "HELP" or "MY PANTS ARE DOING WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO!" We calmly encourage them to stop, take a breath and then we ask why they think they can't do something or why their objective isn't reaching their expected outcome. And, from this, we can see that it's clearly worked!