In celebration of all birthdays in all times of the year, I thought I would put together some fun STEAM activities! Whether it be a Maker Mat, a Choice Board, and a pixel art activity, any (or all!) can easily be integrated for some student creativity and critical thinking.
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Recently, I watched Disney/Pixar's latest movie, Soul, with my family. It was such a cute movie that made you think deeper about yourself. I loved how it talked about finding purpose and how your purpose doesn't matter much if you don't find the time to live while pursuing it. Such a great message for kiddos about how they can be something bigger than themselves through their personality, purpose, and living life as your best self.
As I was watching the movie and seeing how my own kiddos were drawn into the story, I thought it would be a great theme motivator for digital activities. Although 2020 may be coming to a close, we still aren't in the clear and distance learning is still part of our reality. I love when I can put a spin on something that students are interested in to draw them into the learning. I put together some of my favorite types of activities below using Soul as the theme. Feel free to use (if you share, please give credit)! How about we start out with a Google Slide as a welcome agenda? Google Jamboard Warm Up
Why not start a day/lesson off with a little warm up? I love using Google Jamboard for activities like this where I want students to think creatively. With this prompt, students are to place themselves in the shoes of Joe and think about what he might be writing on the board to share with his students. Simply have students add text or a sticky note, and you can start collecting responses!
Pixel Art Review
To say I have been a bit obsessed with pixel art lately would be an understatement. I love pairing the pixel art concept with Google Sheets to make interactive review/question and answer type sheets. Possibly just a glorified worksheet, but it engages students and self-checks along the way. It can open up communication among students when they reach a question/problem that they are having difficulty with, as it provides instant feedback on if the answer is correct or not. These type of activities could be great for students to be paired up online and complete together.
Below are two different links - one to the blank template and one to an example of content inserted (using multiplication facts). Choice Board
For the online version, I created a digital Maker Mat using digital building blocks. Students can select any of the bricks and copy and paste them to make new bricks. This is a great way for students to practice keyboard shortcuts, manipulating objects, and being creative.
SPARK (Bingo) Game Boards
Let's be honest, we all have one of those games we play on our phone that is a bit of a guilty addiction. I will admit, I have played Disney Emoji Blitz for longer than I would like to admit. ;)
With the release of the movie, the game had a special event in which you can earn characters and keyboard items. So why not a fun, bingo (let's call it SPARK as this is Soul-themed after all) game! I created this game using flippity.net, as they have an easy bingo template that works with Google Slides. If you click on the button below for the "Online SPARK Boards," you not only have the option to print boards, but you can also have students access an online bingo board as well as a wheel to spin for the teacher (under the "Play" tab). Some ways to use this SPARK board:
These are just some ideas for how I might use the theme of the movie to get started with some STEAM/EdTechy activities for students. But really, the possibilities are endless? How would you integrate the movie/theme of the movie into your curriculum?
Back in the spring, right before our schools shut down for face to face learning, I was in the middle of my STEAM Minecraft unit. We were focusing on Computational Thinking and how we can use it to help us solve problems we might have - whether it is troubleshooting or the actual content. The theme idea came from the students (so it was a Culturally Responsive Teaching approach), so I used that drive the content. The students were so engaged! They had to know more, visit each station, and probably would have stayed all day if I let them.
This fall has presented us with different challenges with teaching and learning. This was a unit I designed and the kids absolutely loved. I knew I needed to find a way to make this happen in a virtual or socially distanced setting. As much as I would have loved to completely replicate this unit skill for skill, I wasn't quite able to the way I wanted. Although that part was a bit of a bummer, it also allowed me to stretch myself a bit and try new and different things. My hope is that this digital/virtual version of my Minecraft until will allow teachers to insert their content into a station if desired. This content can be whatever is relevant to whatever you are teaching now (or planning for the future)!
Below I am including preview of the resources, but also links where you can make copies of the files and make it your own! Minecraft Virtual Classroom
Most of the station square links in the presentation will open a new Google Slide presentation. A few of the station square links (Station 1, Station 2, and Station 7) will force students to make a copy of an existing Google Slide presentation (Station 2 will force a copy of a Google Sheet). This is because to complete those particular stations, students will need a copy of the full presentation to manipulate different components.
I originally had planned this activity to be a basic pixel art activity as I thought it would be a high engagement activity (as this group loves Minecraft). As I was driving to the school (a whopping 2 minute maximum drive), I had a thought that made me change my mind about my plan. I usually give the students task cards or Maker Mats with this type of activity, but my plan was to give them the challenge of creating pixel art with free choice on creativity. My thought that made me change my mind about the structure of the activity was to have each class design their own Maker Mat to use for the activity. Using some basic design thinking, I led each class through how we were going to create our own Maker Mat to create our pixel art. I didn't follow a specific process, but this is how I led the design part of the activity. Our theme for our Maker Mat was "Summer."
Students could complete any of the items on the Maker Mat on the board in any order they chose. As usual with task cards or when using a Maker Mat, the groups had to show the classroom teacher or I their creation before moving on to the next item. Class #1Class #2I love how the classes came up with different interpretations for each of their items. There were so many creative ideas! This was actually a quick process in designing the Maker Mat, so students had plenty of time in our hour-long activity to simply build. It was a great way to give the students ownership in the activity. When I came in and they asked me what we were going to be building, I could honestly say, "I don't know!".
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