Changing Weight of the Pulley

Week of October 13

 

We brought back the pulley set up, this time with buckets tied to each end. The length was set so that when one side was pulled all the way down the other would be up over the height of the children and out of their reach. The children initially began by pulling the buckets to move each side. They were then given the challenge of moving the buckets without using their hands. Ms. Kilpatrick brought both buckets to the same level, then placed a bean bag in one bucket. She then let the bucket go and the children watched it fall to the ground as the other side went up. Their instinct was to grab the floor, but Ms. Kilpatrick asked how they could use the bean bags to bring the bucket down.  The children wanted to access the empty bucket. They would ask to be lifted so they could lace bean bags inside.

The children were then offered the challenge of balancing the pulleys without being lifted. Ms. Kilpatrick modeled taking bean bags out of the lower bucket. The children would then try the same. After trying this enough times a child would fill one bucket with bean bags and another child would attempt to grab the higher bucket.  Some children like Nicholas and Brady would immediately come to the full bucket and pull out all of the bean bags to get the higher bucket back down, while other children still wanted to pull on the strings to get the bucket down.  

I noticed how the children would hold onto both buckets once they were both within reach. They wanted to use both buckets, but recognized this was not possible once weight was added to either bucket. I wonder what the children would do if the ends of the pulley were separated more and the children could not reach both at one time. I a interested to see if this will help us to further our exploration of weight ‘s effect on the pulley since the children will only be able to manipulate one side of the pulley at a time