Wonder what's inside

Back in December, we started a hands-on inquiry.

A parent from last year's class (thanks Carolyn!) donated an older blender she wasn't using anymore.

Many children didn't know what it was, so we started the inquiry process by wondering.

Kristien - "What this is?"

Lily- "It's a blender!"

K- "What means blender?"

L- "It makes smoothies and stuff."

The children handled the blender, moving the parts and peeking through the grill.

Teacher- "What do you think is inside?"

Cameron Ha- "I think there are eggs inside. Little eggs that make it go."

Kristien- "I see triangle things."

After introducing a screwdriver and going over some safety rules, the children had a go at opening the blender.

Cameron Hu- "We're trying to get it open."

Keegan- "We need to get the screws out."

Aidan- "Owen, turn it that way. Lefty loosy."

The screws were a little stripped, so our custodian Robyn used some special tools to get the bottom off. Once able to see inside, the children had lots of observations.

Aidan- "You can spin this and the fan turns. There are rainbow cords!"

Teacher- "I wonder why that spins."

Aidan- "So you can make the smoothie. It mixes fruit together."

Keegan- "See that wire? It spins so that spins, so it all spins together."

They were trying to get the motor assembly out, but it was attached through the housing. Cameron Hu and Jaxin came up with a plan to kick it into submission.....

Cameron- "HULK SMASH!!!!!!!"

Teacher- "NOOOOO HULK SMASH!"

After some discussion, Krista took the housing to Robyn during recess, and she used a hammer to do the "hulk smash" in a safer way.

Success! 

The motor could be removed and the deconstruction continued. 

The children were highly engaged in taking out screws and taking apart every piece.

With each piece removed, engagement grew. They loved pulling out each wire one by one and sorting the pieces that came apart.

Owen-"Look, it's metal. Let's put it in the metal Beautiful Stuff."

Ty- "Let's get that thing out (bolt on the fan) and it will all come apart."

Keegan- "Look at all this brown yarn inside. The rainbow wires that I took out last time, they're connected to the brown wire. I can get it out."

Now that our blender is reduced to a collection of parts, and the wire has been harvested, we're ready to move on to the next part of our inquiry.

Here's a sneak peek:

We would love to repeat this process on more appliances. If you have any at home you can donate, let Krista or Katy know.