“Shredded packing cardboard – macro-3” (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Dominick Guzzo

I’m fortunate to have a week of working with the kindergarten students. They are currently learning three(!) different units due to a new class starting and Chinese/English bilingual classes teaching different units simultaneously. In any case, we have been using the time to test out some materials. There is a grass slope in the school’s garden that is perfect for sliding down. I brought out a bunch of different materials — some great for sliding and some intentionally meant to fail — and had students try them out. We also came up with some criteria for ‘best’ when it came to sliding down the hill, and then constructed a continuum from best to worst materials. Good fun!