Today, I toured with two groups: one of 2nd-grade students and another of 3rd-grade students, and I had two completely different experiences. The first group (2nd grade) was engaged, curious, and responsive; the second (3rd grade) not so much. The second group consisted of 7 boys and two adults (one of whom was the teacher).
We worked with the same items in the collection, though I modified the content with the second group by close-looking at more items, guiding the conversation more, and spending less time giving them added information. We (Group 2) spent more time looking at items they expressed interest in, rather than at the items I had planned.
We all did the heart rate experiment in Room 5, which went well. Both groups engaged and had interesting insights about the activity. We visited Palmyra and Return to Darkness, and all students participated.
Our visits were cut a bit short because, although the bus was on time, most of the students needed to use the restroom before starting on the tour.
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