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Hi, I'm Akua.
Toady my son Caleb and I are going to explore ramps
and how things move down them.
We're going to do things together
to get Caleb excited about science.
We're going to play and explore together,
ask questions and talk about ideas,
and explore more.
At the end of the video,
I'll show you all the ways I did this.
How do you feel about making one of your own?
We can try and make a slide?
Yeah!
AKUA: Yeah? Okay, let's do it.
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(paper crumpling)
All right, so why don't you put Peep on the slide
and let's see what happens.
So what happened when you put him on right now?
Nothing happened because it's flat.
Okay, why don't you take him off and we can try again?
Went down a little bit faster.
Okay, and now what's going to happen?
What do you think's going to happen?
It's going to roll down extra fast.
Yeah.
Okay.
And why do you think that happens?
CALEB: If it's flat on the ground nothing happens.
And then when it's higher...
when it's really high,
it goes down really fast.
And when it's sort of high,
it doesn't go down that fast.
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AKUA: It looks like you're having a lot of fun.
All right, Caleb, I'm going to record you
playing with your ramp
that you made today. CALEB: Okay.
AKUA: Can you show me
what you did today, what you learned?
CALEB: Yeah. AKUA: What is it doing?
It makes Quack and Peep go down a little bit fast.
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AKUA: So what's happening here?
Can you explain to me what's happening with your experiment?
CALEB: I lifted the ramp up a little bit
and Peep and Quack went down it a little bit fast.
And...
when I lifted it up even higher,
they went really, really fast.
AKUA: Now let's rewind so I can show you the places
where I did things to get Caleb excited about science.
Play and explore together.
When I played and explored with Caleb,
it showed him that I'm interested and paying attention.
(laughing)
Ask questions and talk about ideas.
Here's how I helped Caleb talk about his ideas.
(both laughing)
Think of where you could see that in the real world?
At the park?
AKUA: Mm-hmm.
Or... a roller coaster.
AKUA: After we watch the video, I connected what we saw
Peep doing in the cartoon to our trips to the playground.
That got Caleb talking about what he knew about slides
and roller coasters.
When we did the slide activity, I asked Caleb
questions to get him thinking about how ramps work.
Now what's going to happen?
What do you think's going to happen?
CALEB: It's gonna roll down extra fast.
AKUA: Yeah.
And after we recorded the video, we talked about it.
That gave Caleb a chance to tell me what he learned.
Explore more.
To explore, I changed the activity
by adding some of Caleb's toys.
It lets him explore ramps in a new way and adds to the fun.
We also went outside to play with ramps.
Caleb learned more when he explores the same science topics
indoors and outdoors.
The way to get Caleb excited about science
is for us to play together, talk about what we're doing,
and explore what we've learned
in different ways.
The key is that we do it together--
playing, talking,
and exploring together will make a big difference
in helping your child learn too.
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