On December 18th, we started working on a PBL about inventing your own toy that can stand the test of time. I got the lesson from the Weekly Warms-Ups on pblproject.com. The students were presented with this task: The Problem You are a toy designer hoping to launch the next great toy that will be popular for years to come. What direction should you take in the design of this toy, and why will children be drawn to it? (You can access more information about the lesson here.) Check out some of their sketches!On January 8th, we began working on marketing their inventions. The students were able to chose from a variety of creation-based apps. Many students chose PuppetPals, while others chose apps like ComicLife and Educreations. Today they continued to work on their projects, and we will finish up this project the next time we meet on January 29th. Here are a few of the commercials that were created with PuppetPals: I am so proud of my students! With very little direction from me, they taught themselves how to use the app and showed just how creative they really are!
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On November 20, 2015 we started our first activity with Google's CS-First Club.
You can find out more about this program at cs-first.com. Google donated 30 pairs of headphones for our school, in addition to all the materials we will need for this club! The storytelling club allows students to write a computer programming code with Scratch to create digital stories. We had to battle our aging technology to get our first activity started, but I am excited about this opportunity. October 30, 2015 & November 13, 2015
Students had the choice of working in groups, with a partner, or individually on this project. Materials Unsharpened pencils Rubber bands Clothes pins Plastic spoons Candy corn Objective Create a catapult with the materials provided that will launch one piece of candy corn the highest and farthest. We had a great time with this activity! We had so much fun that we ran out of time. We ended up making this a two-part activity and revisited it another day after the students researched different types of catapults and their designs. Our first activity as a STEM Club was a cup stacking activity. The purpose of this activity was to allow the students an opportunity to work together as an icebreaker.
Materials For Each Group 6 plastic cups 1 rubber band 4 pieces of string Objective The goal is to stack all 6 cups in a pyramid without touching the cups with your hands. Students may only use the strings or rubber band to move the cups. The great thing about our projects in STEM club is that they don't have to be perfect. Even if the students don't get it "right", they can still learn from trial and error with their mistakes. This year, we decided to start at STEM club at Wells Elementary. All fourth and fifth grade students go to clubs on Friday mornings. Since the other clubs had already started for the year, students had to apply to be in the STEM club. Applicants were chosen and we had our first STEM Club meeting on Oct. 16, 2015.
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