There are a lot of things for our Lower Elementary students to get excited about this time of year! The tall slide on the playground, the Native American flute, their upcoming trip to the Utah State Fair, and math exercises using materials that span CLEAR across the Lower Elementary hallway are just a few of them. My personal favorite, though, are the Great Lessons that start the school year. Great Lessons are aimed at the elementary students vivid use of imagination, one of their very best attributes -wouldn’t you say, to get them thinking about some of the big questions in life. Where did humans come from? Why does the earth rotate? Who made up language?
There are a total of five Great Lessons and they are used to introduce the year’s studies of history, geography, botany, zoology, science, language and math in the LE program. Not only are they important in inspiring the child’s imagination and investing them in the importance of various subjects they can look forward to studying, but they are memorable, too! Having the opportunity to hear these stories three different times in their LE cycle allows students to consider them from various perspectives.
Today’s story is called The Story of the Universe and our very own Diana shared it with both the Wasatch and Oquirrh class. The lights were low as she described a time before the children existed, before she herself existed…..before there was any life at all. Through a series of beautifully described bangs, expansions, colors, gasses turning to liquids turning to solids, formations and temperatures and one auditorily memorable POP!, she described the story of our universe. Oquirrh and Wasatch students will follow up this lovely story with a number of experiments including Colder than Cold, Chemical Combinations of Gas, Chemical Reactions, Crystillization, Law of Gravity and many more in the coming weeks.
If you get the chance, ask your Oquirrh or Wasatch student how they are related to the universe? Their answer is sure to involve iron!
