ECD 133 Science and Math Concepts- Field Work Analysis

Three Billy Goat Gruff “Build a Bridge”

Developmental Focus: Cognitive

Content Focus: Integrated Plan: Math, Science and Literacy

Learning Outcomes:
1. The child will… have an open-ended discussion about the problems in
the story.
ELS: LDC-10s – Ask more focused and detailed questions about a story or the
information in a book.

2. The child will… draw their solution of the problem and discuss what
materials they plan to use.
ELS: CD-5t – Plan and complete artistic creations such as drawings, paintings,
collages, and sculptures.

3. The child will… manipulate the materials and talk about the objects and
how and where they will be placed.
ELS: MTE-4l – Consistently use a variety of words for positions in space (in, over,
under, etc) and follow directions using these words.

4. The child will… follow safety rules for the tools they use.
ELS: HPD-8o – Independently follow established safety rules.

5. The child will… test their structure and talk about it.
ELS: CD-11t – Engage in the scientific process by observing, making predictions,
recording predictions (through photographs, drawings, or dictations, developing
plans for testing hypotheses, trying out ideas and communicating outcomes.

6. The child will… refine the model and make improvements.

ELS: CD-11u – Analyze the result of an attempted solution and use new information
to solve a problem (e.g. after observing a paper boat sinking in the water, making a
new boat out of a different material to see if it would float).

7. The child will… share their solution with other classmates/family

members.
ELS: APL – 6q – Explain how they solved a problem to another person.

Materials to Collect/Prepare:

 The Three Billy Goats Gruff retold by Judith Smith and Brenda Parkes
 Reusable resources: paper, newspaper, straws, craft sticks, toothpicks, paper
clips, cotton swabs, plastic cups, cardboard boxes, sheets, paper towel/toilet
paper tubes
 Connectors: glue, tape, pipe cleaner
 Tools: scissors, rulers, measuring tape
 Photos of different bridge designs0
  3 Billy Goat to stand on top
 Troll under the bridge
 Paper, markers, crayons, pencils for recording data

Adult-Guided Procedures:
 I will greet the child and introduce myself.
 I will tell the child that during the story that I will read that they will need to
look for the problem in the story.
 I will read the story The Three Billy Goats Gruff retold by Judith and Brenda
Parkes
 I will ask the child what the problem of the story is.
 I will ask more open-ended questions to get the child thinking about how they
could fix the problem.
 I will show the child the materials that I have collected for this project.
 I will allow the child to look at, touch and feel the objects before instructing
them to do anything.
 I will let the child know what each item/tool is.
 I will make sure the child understands the safety rules of the tools they are
allowed to use.
 I will give the child paper and markers, crayons, pencils, etc, to draw out their
plan.
 I will be asking open-ended questions to mold their thought process.
 I will allow the child to begin tinkering with materials.
 I will continue to ask open-ended questions.
 I will support the child during their test of the structure.
 I will encourage the child to draw their final creation and again if they rebuild.
 I will give positive words to encourage the child to change up their structure if
it fails.
 I will scaffold up/down if necessary.

Child Guided Procedures:

 The child will introduce themselves.
 The child will listen to The Three Billy Goats Gruff retold by Judith Smith and
Brenda Parkes
 The child will determine the problem of the story.
 The child will discuss what they might think will solve the problem.
 The child will see and feel the materials that are given.
 The child will know what each item is called.
 The child will follow safety procedures with any tool they are given to use.
 The child will draw their plan using markers, crayons and pencils.
 The child will discuss their choices with the teacher.
 The child will begin to tinker with the materials.
 The child will explain what they are doing as they go along.
 The child will test their structure.
 The child will rebuild/reconstruct their structure if needed.
 The child will take pride in their project and share it with the class and family.
Conversations to Support Learning/Talking with Children:
1. What is the problem in the story?
2. How do you think you can fix it?
3. What could you do with these items?
4. How will you hold your material together?
5. Which materials seem stronger than others?
6. How do the goats use their brains and their strength to outsmart the troll?
7. What is another way the goats could get to the hillside without crossing the troll’s
bridge?
8. How will you build your bridge?
9. What shapes make the strongest bridge?
10. What tools could you measure the bridge?
11. Why do you think your bridge design is a good idea for the goats?
12. How could we make sure that the troll couldn’t get on this bridge?
Accommodations for Individuals:
Scaffolding down: Take away some of the more difficult materials/tools.
Scaffolding up: Imagine your bridge must be built over a river that is twice
as wide as the original one. Change the design or build a new bridge that spans at
least 20 inches and will hold at least one billy goat.

Resources:
1. The Three Billy Goat Gruff retold by Judith Smith and Brenda Parkes
2. South Carolina Early Learning Standards
3. Making & Tinkering with STEM by Cate Heroman

Observation Notes

Activity Name: Build a Bridge

Age of Child: 4 years and 1 months
Child’ Initials: JN
Location of Field Work Experience: Prince George Preschool
Beginning Time of Experience: 10:00 am
Ending Time of Experience: 10:45 am

 I brought JN into the room where we would be reading and he would

be introduced to the materials.
 We talked about the materials on the table first before I talked about the
book or the activity because he asked about them.
 I told JN that I would be reading Three Billy Goats Gruff retold by Judith Smith
and Brenda Parkes.
 I asked him if he remembered this story and he responded with “yes! The
Three Billy Goats and the troll!”
 I told him that there was a problem in the story and I needed him to help
figure it out.
 I read the story and asked him afterwards what he thought was the problem.
 He responded with “the troll tried to eat the goats when they were crossing!”
 I asked JN what he thought he could do to solve the problem, he said “make a
bigger bridge!”
 I asked him “What could you do with these items on the table to fix the
problem?”
 He started getting pieces of cardboard out of the pile.
 “I could use these for the bridge, it looks like a ramp!”
 I asked JN “How will you create a bridge with those? How can you keep them
together?”
 JN responded “Tape!” – he taped the “bridge” together.
 I asked JN “How will your bridge stand up?”
 He looked at the materials and said “those cardboard rolls”
 He placed the paper towel roll on the bridge and said “more tape please”
 At first, he was struggling to get it where the paper towel roll would fasten
onto the other cardboard, so I showed him a trick with the tape and he
continued to do it by himself.
 After he was done, he flipped the bridge over with the ends flopping onto the
table.
 I asked JN “How will you get the ends of your bridge to stand up and be
sturdy?”
 JN grabbed the plastic cups and flipped the bridge back around.
 JN forgot how to tape the cup to the cardboard so I showed him one time and
he did the rest for the cup.
 JN flipped the structure over again and saw that the end was wobbly. I asked
him how he could make it sturdy.
 JN reached for the paper plates and put one under the papertowel roll.
 I asked him why he chose paper plates he said “to make it flat”
 I asked JN “what could you do to the other side to make it sturdy?”
 JN said “the same thing I did with the cups!”
 JN flipped the structure over and got a cup and asked for the tape.
 JN taped up the cup onto the “bridge” and flipped it back over and saw that it
wasn’t sturdy.
 I asked JN “what materials could help make the cup even with the table?”
 JN got the book and started looking through the pages to look at the bridge.
 He put the book down and grabbed some more cardboard to put underneath
the cups and the paper plate.
 Once he saw that it was sturdy, he said “lets put one of the goats on the
bridge”
 He followed through with the baby goat at the beginning of the bridge to the
top to the end and so on with the medium and big billy goat.
 I asked JN “how will the troll not get on top of the bridge?”
 JN said “the chopsticks are for the hackers” “they will poke him so he will fall”
 JN taped the chopsticks on the side on the bridge.
 JN drew his creation on paper and proceeded to show a teacher what he
made.
Observation Photos with Captions
 Response to Analysis Questions

1. Evaluate the introduction activity you used. Was the activity

appropriate? Why or why not?
My introduction activity was a book that JN had heard before and was
developmentally appropriate. He followed along and made comments about
the troll and read along with some of the repeating lines. I did not do the
initial activity of drawing what he wanted to build at first and then comparing
the two drawings of before and after. I honestly forgot.
2. Evaluate the activity/games. Did the activity/games engage the
child while allowing you to assess knowledge and understanding?
Explain why or why not giving specific examples.
JN was overall engaged with the activity. He had a few times where he lost
his train of thought and was ready to eat lunch and talked about “hackers”.
But overall, he engaged well with the problem at hand and how to solve it. He
needed assistance with the tape, because it was hard for him to take pieces
off and getting him to cut it with scissors every time would have been time
consuming and I wouldn’t have been able to take as many pictures.
Everytime I asked an open ended question, JN would act before saying
anything. He would show me rather than tell me and I would have to ask him
“why?”.
3. Evaluate your performance. What did you do well and why do you
think so? What would you change if you were to do this again and
why would you make these changes?
I would have someone to take pictures for me. I feel like that is my biggest
downfall and I missed some of his “quotes”. I was too engaged with getting
good pictures. The next time I do something like this I want to record the
audio, so I will be able to listen back to what was going on and to remember
more of what he said! I would have gotten him to draw his initial plan and for
him to be able to compare his first one with the one afterwards.

4. What did you learn about the child’s science/math knowledge? Give
specific examples and identify specific concepts .

JN did a lot of engineering to create this bridge, he made sure that

throughout creating it that it was strong enough to hold the “goats”
and he created a troll proof bridge with a defensive mechanism. He
was constantly redirecting his course and changing things to make it
better and stronger. He used vocabulary with math context such as
over and under.

5. What connections can you make between our class

discussions/research and what actually happened during your teaching?
What did you discover about this child’s development in relation to our
class content?
I know for sure that you never know how a child is going to do in a
situation like this and all kids are different. I know that I am always
having anxiety through the roof when I am doing activities like this
because I either forget my paper that has my questions on it or I forget
to do something.

Next Steps
1. The child will… use different materials to add to his structure such as
blocks and duct tape and other ramps to create a stronger bridge.
ELS: MTE-6d Seek answers to questions during play and activities using an
increasing
variety of mathematical strategies (figure out how to balance a block structure;
to
build a bridge; to create a pattern with Legos).

2. The child will… use stronger weights for the goats and troll to test
the strength of the bridge
ELS: CD-2x Introduce more elaborate or detailed ideas or actions into
play based on previous knowledge or experience.

Family Information Page

 We’ve been building bridges!
We have been dissecting the story
“The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff” and the
children have loved engineering and
building bridges.
We would love it if any of the families
could provide some materials that we
might not have in the classroom that
could be recycled and used for our
project! We want to build something
that can hold a 4 year old child!

Look around the town you live in or places

you visit. Before crossing bridges, ask your
child to observe what they look like and how
they think they are standing and holding so
much weight! Ask about different shapes
and how they can effect the strength of the
bridge.