Memories of a kindergarten Gem inquiry: "What are the best gems?"

One day during outdoor learning time, a student approached Amber and announced, “I’ve got my flashlight, and I’m ready to look for gems!” That day, Amber and the student (and a whole group of others who joined in the hunt) crawled all over the yard searching for ‘gems’ of different colours. They found berries, seeds, and other small items, and the students imagined that the different-coloured ‘gems’ had different special abilities (e.g. gems for building, gems for starting fires, gems for healing injuries). This outdoor learning experience was the spark for a fantastic gem inquiry, with lots of learning about rocks and minerals, and volcanoes too!

We quickly stocked our class library full of books about real gems (rocks and minerals) in order to extend students’ thinking and playing. We learned that “gemologists” examine gems and determine which ones are particularly special. So, over the course of several weeks, we became gemologists and the rocks we found were our own very special gems.

During the exploration phase of our inquiry, we collected many, many extra-special rocks that we found in our outdoor learning area. We found gems of different colours and sizes, and used our nonfiction texts to try to identify them.

We brought our gems inside to play with, and we also looked at special gems from students’ and teachers’ own collections from home. Finding gems provided us with many opportunities to count and compare amounts, to create patterns (colours, sizes, kinds of gems), and to learn to measure masses of gems using balance scales.

Someone said that they like to collect rocks when they go to the beach, and then someone else asked if we could go to a beach to find gems. We had fun turning our quiet corner into a pebble beach with many interesting gems to look at.

When a group of students found a GIANT rock stuck in the ground one day, they were determined to dig it out. One student told the group that if they could dig it out, they could melt it and turn it into a real emerald or diamond or gold. This was a VERY exciting idea, because we’d not yet been able to find any real emeralds or diamonds or gold in our own school yard. So, outdoors over the course of several days, the students attempted to dig up the rock using sticks and smaller rocks they’d found outside, and using tools they’d brought from home, like shovels.

Indoors, we theorized and made plans about how we would eventually melt our giant gem and turn it into an emerald or diamond or gold.

One idea was to use an x-ray machine to melt the giant rock. Where would we get an x-ray machine? Someone said that the police have x-ray machines. So we wrote a letter to the police station.

Someone said that we could use lava to melt rocks. We’d learned from a nonfiction book about magma and lava and how new rocks are formed. This student thought that if we could get a jar of lava, we could pour it on the giant rock to melt it. How would we get lava? We’d need to go to a volcano. How? Someone had seen a photo in a nonfiction book of a helicopter flying around a volcano. We’d need a helicopter ride. So we wrote a letter to a helicopter pilot.

Someone said that firefighters might know how to melt rocks because they know a lot about hot things, and lava is really hot. So we wrote a letter to a firefighter.

We waited for responses to our letters.

* * * * *

In the meantime . . .

As students spent more time looking at books from our collection, they started to become particularly interested in the photos and illustrations of volcanoes.

(Lego volcanos and helicopters)

We learned that lava from volcanoes forms new rocks, and we learned about different parts of volcanoes. Following this interest in volcanoes, we collaborated to make some models and representations of volcanoes to show what we had learned.

(Planning for a volcano mural)

(Papier mache volcano model)

(Adding labels)

(Some outdoor volcano fun - eruptions from snow volcanoes)

(More eruptions - Diet Coke and Mentos)

(Someone found a map of volcanoes around the world, and we located some on our globe!)

* * * * *

Back to the rock-melting plan . . . waiting for responses to our letters . . .

First, we received a response from a police officer. Police stations do not have x-ray machines. Sergeant Johnson liked our idea, though!

Next, we received a response from a firefighter. No luck there either, but Firefighter Glen suggested we invent something to melt our rock!

We took Firefighter Glen’s suggestion and tried to make our own new invention - a gem melter machine! We asked families to donate loose parts that we could use, then made a plan and built it according to our plan. (The students had such fun building the gem-melter machine and playing with its moving parts, that we don’t know if they ever actually realized it did not melt any gems.)

(Side note: Someone suggested that for best results in our gem-melter machine, we would need to break the giant rock into smaller pieces before putting it in the machine. THAT was a fun outdoor challenge!)

While still waiting to hear back from the helicopter pilot, we tried to come up with other ideas about how to melt rock. We tested the students’ ideas, and during each trial we recorded predictions beforehand, and used our senses to make observations during and after.

Idea #1 - Put the rock in a large bowl of cold water and wait for it to melt

Idea #2 - Pour hot water on the rock and then count to 10

Idea #3 - Put the rock in very cold water (make it cold with snow), then put it into very hot water

Idea #4 - Freeze the rock in a bowl of water and then let it melt (while the ice melts, the rock will melt)

* * * * *

Side note: This turned out to be a great opportunity to make a connection to the temperature outside, which we regularly talk about and intentionally notice and feel during outdoor learning time. We know that 0 degrees means “as cold as ice”!

* * * * *

Back to the rock frozen in ice: We got impatient waiting for the ice/rock to melt, so that led to more experimenting about ways to make ice melt faster!

None of our rock-melting attempts were successful, so we accepted that we might never be able to make our own real gems.

But . . .

Some students were looking together at a nonfiction book outside and saw a photo of a geode. We read the words and learned that geodes are special water gems. This book included instructions to make pretend geodes using food colouring, salt, water, and eggshells. So we followed the procedure. . . and had great success! We made gems!!

We also had fun using clay and some of our small rocks and minerals to make pretend sedimentary rocks like some students had seen in a nonfiction book.

So, we didn’t make any real emeralds or diamonds or gold, but having made pretend water gems and sedimentary rocks, we were quite satisfied!

And then, just before the winter holidays, we received a letter from the helicopter pilot, Captain Jackson!

He said he would not be able to take us to a volcano, but he sent us pilot’s wings pins, stickers, and postcards. The students literally cheered and applauded when they heard they’d each be receiving such special gifts. What a thrilling end to our inquiry!

As always, throughout this entire inquiry, we made meaningful math and literacy connections, and wrote daily in our outdoor learning journals to record our favourite memories.

Speaking of memories, to wrap up this post, here are a few more photos of other memories from this inquiry . . .

Playing gem/volcano-related games that we invented together:

“Helicopter ride to the volcano” (using the play structures as ‘mountain climbing’ obstacles),

“Lava is coming!” (tag game based on ‘Floor is Lava’),

“Shape Gem Treasure Hunt” (hide and seek with pattern block ‘gems’), and

“Gem Stealers” (hide and seek tag with 3D figures)