During outdoor play I realized that our ball ramp had only one wood ball and many children wanting turns. Birdie approached me and said “it’s not fair they have had a long turn.” Waiting for young children is difficult but also builds the neurological and emotional foundation for self-regulation, patience and communication skills. I explained that I understood it is hard to wait, and then asked “what can we do Birdie?” Her response was “get more balls, Mary.” After searching the shed and discovering no small balls I went inside to find some from our closet. Looking at the balls I thought let’s make this more interesting, so I grabbed a variety of balls of different weight, size, and textures.
I noticed how everyone came to see what was in my bucket. Birdie was so excited she yelled for Fox and Sadie to come and see. Everyone heard her and came running. Before I could even speak Fox said “hey Mary, which one will go the fastest?” Just by the looks of the balls Fox had an idea in his head of what makes them faster. So, I decided to fly with this, with the group of children standing around. I asked each one of them to take a look at the balls without touching and predict which ones were heavier, then which ones were lighter. Off these predictions I then asked them which ones would go faster down the ramp. Below is a small chart of the small group’s predictions.
Heavy balls vs light balls. Which will go faster down the ramp?
Hannah, Fox, Sadie and Eilis all said the heavy balls will roll the fastest. Fox added the heaviest ball will be the quickest down because they are fast like soccer balls.
Birdie, Rose, Ava, Nihal, and Lana all said the light balls will go faster with Lana saying that the wind will make it faster because it is windy outside.
Each child was then asked to take a ball from the bucket and feel the dimensions and textures and share their personal thoughts with their peers on how their ball would perform on the ramp.
Fox had another great question, “Mary, how will we know which ball is faster?” Not having an answer at the top of my head, Rose yelled out “you can use your clock on your hand.”
What a great idea, but instead of using my watch, I used the iPad stopwatch which was bigger and all the children could observe either the ball or the timer.
One at a time the children would stand at the drop point and wait for the words “are you ready? Get set, and go.” I started and timed every ball that went down the ramp. The children’s facial reactions seemed tense to me as it appeared they did not know the outcome and speed of the ball.
Here we timed all eight varieties of balls and below is their time.
Large blue waffle 12.43 sec
Pink hard rubber 13.25
Multi-colour 42.76
Dark blue Mini 11.01
Tennis ball 11.47
Golf ball 8.22
Mini white waffle 11.97
Natural wood. 10.32
In the end, we discovered that yes, some heavy balls would roll faster down the ramp, however, we also learned that the material or the texture of the ball plays a part in that rolling process. We discovered that the pink small hard rubber ball appeared to the heaviest ball we had, but every time it dropped to the next ramp below, it bounced backwards and, in the end, adding more time to the final stage making it not the fastest ball. We also discovered that due to the texture of our small coloured material ball it would not even roll down the ramp without being pushed by one’s hand in the right direction.
This activity was full of fun, curiosity and excitement which continues to foster the children’s numeracy skills. These skills continue to grow through estimations and predictions, measuring weight, size and texture. Discovering that all balls can, and will roll with some type of force behind it.
