A new year, so a new theme!  I personally love winter and snow.  Thankfully I live in a state that gets a decent amount of snow each year.  I started off with my Y5/T1 kiddos with a yeti theme this week.  I have several stories to share with them over the next couple of weeks about Yetis.  I heard many conversations as students were working if they have seen a yeti before.  :)

The book for this week was, The Thing About Yetis.  It is a fun story that shares about what yetis like to do in the winter and that sometimes they miss summer.  So for the challenge this week, I asked students to build something with pattern blocks that their yeti (a 3D printed Flockmen) would like to do in the winter and in the summer.  I told them that they are now up for more complex challenges as we are halfway through the year, so this time I was going to give them a building restriction.  I told them that their design for their winter creation had to fit in the winter box and the design for the summer had to fit in the summer box.  I wanted them to focus in on showing what their yeti would like to do instead of building the biggest possible creation.

The kiddos really seemed to enjoy this activity and came up with some great ideas.  This was the first time (I believe!) that I saw multiple students creating individually, but using colors and blocks pieced together so that their idea made sense to someone looking at it.  For example, one student had the yeti ice skate in the winter and used blue diamond blocks fit together to make an ice skating rink.  Previously, several students would have just grabbed a handful of blocks, placed them in the middle and then lay the yeti on top saying he was skating.  It is great to see their progression with ideas, design, and aesthetics!

As this was the last week of school before Winter Break, the students were a bit restless and teachers were a bit out of energy (myself included!).  So I decided to end out the holiday season with one of my son's favorite books from when he was younger, The Littlest Elf (because they both have the name of Oliver!).  My students really seemed to enjoy the story as well and were interested in all of the different kinds of job that might take place at the North Pole.

So we used our bendable elves and created some jobs for them!  Students were challenged to create a small village using some wooden town blocks and pattern blocks and then create a job for their elf.  Their elf had to be able to do their job at some place in their village.  We had elves who worked at the hospital (a student had the idea to create a walkway to the front so no one would be injured on the way to the hospital), fire fighters, police officers, dog groomers, food servers, and a variety of other jobs.  It was a great activity that allowed us to wrap up our holiday theme before break and allow students to be creative and share what they know about communities and the people who work in them.

This week was Rock Your School Week, and boy did we rock out our kickoff to Toy Story STEAM Mania in our STEAM classes!  I am planning on doing a Toy Story STEAM Mania theme over the next couple of weeks with my Y5, T1, and 4th grade classes, so this was a perfect week to kick it off!

In Y5 and T1, we started our Toy Story STEAM Mania off with some Potato Head Math.  We started off with the Toy Story book and then practiced some of the number recognition and number correspondence skills that Y5 students were working on.  We used the Potato Heads to practice some of those skills, and it was a hit!.  Students were partnered up and then had to roll a dice, identify the number, match the number to a chart to find out what body part to add to their Potato Head, and then select the appropriate part and put it on the Potato body.  We are really working on how we work with partners, use our words to share ideas, and how to share materials, so this was a perfect opportunity to practice some of those skills.  We even had some time at the end to have some free play and design whatever Potato Head they wanted.

In T1 we did the same activity, but then took it one step further to incorporate some of their math skills - patterns.  After the number recognition activity, I told the students that they could build whatever Potato Head they wanted to - and they came up with some great creations!  I told them that they were now the teachers and their Potato Heads were now their students.  It was their job to teach their Potato Heads about patterns by building patterns with pattern blocks and explaining why it was pattern.  The students really seemed to enjoy mixing something that was normally "play" with learning - and it was so fun for me to see what they came up with they had the opportunity to be creative.

For this activity, I gave each group a bin containing one type of resource.  They had to use only that resource to create their objects - they could not mix with the resources from other groups.  I had two bins of Plus Plus blocks, two of Brain Flakes, and two of pattern blocks.  Some groups appreciate having a bin of one resource to use, while others share that they feel the challenge would be much easier of they had one of the other resources.  With both groups that I did this activity with, I made a point to share that it might seem easier with one of the other resources, but each resource has it's highs and lows for the challenge - some of the tasks are easier and some are harder and it is not the same for each resource.

For this challenge, I told the students they could work as a group at their table (no more than 4), or they could choose to work in two groups at their table.  The students have done really well when given this option because they know that they cannot work by themselves, but they have choice in how they work.  Most times they actually choose to work as a whole table!  After they had selected how they would work, the students could choose any square on the mat to begin their work.  I told them it didn't matter to me which one they chose or which order they went in, but they had to decide as a group and they had to have a teacher sign off before they moved on to the next square.  I was a little nervous with how they would work together after several weeks of snow days here and there, but they did really well and created some great things!

I love when students share their stories behind their creations.  When I do activities like this with a class, I tell the students that they need to check in with a teacher before they can move on to the next building task.  This has really helped them with thinking through their designs and not just throwing something together to move on to something else.  Sometimes it is so hard to capture the thinking and demonstration that goes in their designs with just a picture.  They each bring their talents and ideas to the table to work with their peers to create something new and there is such a special dynamic when you watch it all play out and see an object that has a fantastic story behind it.  These STEAM and Maker opportunities may not always be tied directly to the curriculum content, but the creativity opportunity it provides opens news ways of thinking and working with others when the content comes in to play.  I have to say, I am very lucky to work with amazing teachers who provide students with these learning opportunities!

Wow.  That is all I have to say for this activity.  When I was thinking of what to do with my 4th grade friends, somehow I came about the idea of using chopsticks for something.  That sort of snowballed into having them use chopsticks to move something from one location to another and then building something with the items they collected.  I put materials together (just chopsticks, pattern blocks, and task cards) and was ready to go.  Then as I was about to meet with the class I had this sudden feeling of, oh no, what am I doing to these poor kiddos!  I don't want to give them something totally frustrating and impossible for them to complete.  I assumed many of them would not be able to use chopsticks the "proper" way (I am not even entirely sure I use them the proper way!), but was surprised that about half of the class had used chopsticks before - sweet!  This might work after all!

The directions I gave the students were simple:

1. You must move your blocks using only chopsticks (cannot use hands, cannot throw blocks) from the tub to your group (hard to see in the picture, but groups were on the right side).
2. Only one person can move blocks at a time.  When one person successfully moves a block, they hand the chopsticks off to another group member and then the remain group members build the object.
3. The object they were building must be recognizable and meet the requirements on their task card.

The teacher and I talked to the class before hand that they did not have to use the chopsticks the "proper" way, but that they could not use their hands to touch the blocks when moving them.  What came from those simple directions absolutely blew my mind!

There were so many amazing things that came out of this activity that I did not anticipate - one of the many things that I love about working with students!

1. Some students planned out what they were going to build (as a team) before they even began collecting blocks.  This way they were all on the same page and knew what blocks they would need to move.

2.  Some groups rocked out communicating and collaborating with one another.  A group or two needed some adult guidance in how to work through working with a team, but everyone ended up working together!
3.  As I walked around, I could hear group members yelling out what was needed and encouraging those who were moving the blocks.
4.  It might have looked like total chaos from a distance, but there were so many great things going on at one time.  I am so proud of each of these kiddos for their hard work with this activity!

What truly was amazing to see was how the students stepped up to help each other and encourage each other without being prompted.  They noticed when their group members were struggling and they offered advice constructively and truly build a team that was working together!

I know I didn't get pictures of each creation every group created, but I tried to get as many as possible!  The teacher and I asked that students show us their creation before they moved on to the next card.  This gave us an opportunity to check in with them, see how they were working together, and encourage them as they moved forward to the next task card.  Some of the creations the students came up with are shown below.

I would TOTALLY recommend this activity if you want to put your students in a situation where they must work together to succeed.  Each group member plays a critical part in the success of building and creating and the sense of team adds another level of engagement.  What I thought might be a total flop of an activity ended up being one of the best I have done in a while!

This week I was able to work with one of our awesome 1st grade teachers and her group of kiddos.  The students had previously played with STEAM resources such as straw builders and Magna-Tiles, but had not done a structure STEAM activity.  I love how she gave her students time to just play with STEAM resources and let their imaginations go before doing a more structured activity.  Even if you do structured STEAM activities, I think having time to just play (at any age!) is super important and will help students grow creativity and build confidence.

For our first activity, we started out with a simple task and some simple materials (I used just pattern blocks - nothing super fancy!).  I did not want to overwhelm them with many options as well as ask them to focus on a task.  So, Function Robots it was for this group!

I remember seeing this from someone on Instagram and I cannot remember who, so I am sorry I don't know who to credit for the idea!  The concept is simple though - build a robot that performs a task.  Simple enough!  One thing I did to help them was give them tasks that their robots would have to complete so they wouldn't have to spend time thinking, deciding, and then building together - all collaboratively.  Starting small, I wanted them to focus on the building collaboratively as well as communicating so that they, as a group, could build ONE robot (not each group member building their own).  I wanted to give them tasks that I thought they might already do at home, so they were familiar with them and could relate to the function that would need to take place.

I know it may be hard to tell from their creations what the function of their robot was supposed to be, but they had to explain how their robot worked before they could move on to a new card.  The majority of the groups worked really well together to follow the directions (build ONE robot together that performs the task with only the blocks in their own tub), and had some pretty elaborate explanations for how their robot would work.  I was so proud of their hard work together to build multiple robots and be INVENTORS of things that might not have been previously built before!