As a result, I have been building a variety of Virtual Exploration Rooms around content topics. These rooms allow me to easily share materials with teachers that they can share with their students in an engaging format. Students have a variety of resources presented to them in these rooms and they also empower choice in their learning. Take a look at some of the rooms below to see (or use - they are all available FREEELY!) or even step into the Relaxation Room to just simply engage in some mindfullness and relaxation.
Recently, I have been exploring different ways to engage students in content. There are many tools and strategies available, but sometimes something new or even a different way of presenting a variety of resources for students to explore is just what teachers need.
As a result, I have been building a variety of Virtual Exploration Rooms around content topics. These rooms allow me to easily share materials with teachers that they can share with their students in an engaging format. Students have a variety of resources presented to them in these rooms and they also empower choice in their learning. Take a look at some of the rooms below to see (or use - they are all available FREEELY!) or even step into the Relaxation Room to just simply engage in some mindfullness and relaxation.
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I guess you could say this is a new twist on an old thing. Previously, I had shared winter-themed task cards. They were ones I had used with students when we were building with LEGOs for a STEAM activity. To be honest though, sometimes I like task cards and sometimes I like Maker Mats. It depends on how I am running the activity, what is available for building, and how students are collaborating together.
As I had volunteered to provide an activity for my son's holiday party before break, I thought I would send my Winter Maker Mat and some pipe cleaners for students to create. As many of the maker mats I create are targeted towards an elementary audience with English Language Learners and other special populations, I try to incorporate an English version, a Spanish version, and one with both English and Spanish as well as pictures on all. I want to make sure the activity is accessible to all learnings. The great thing is that in my experience, students rarely recreate the picture as is when they are creating! They use their creativity to take their background knowledge and design something new and amazing! As I sit here and wish for winter to actually hit Michigan with some snow, I figure I am better off settling for a good winter book instead. What better book to share with my littles than one from the Skippyjon Jones series! Skippyjon has been a favorite at my house for years and I love how Judy Schachner weaves Spanish words into the story. So, this week we read Skippyjon Jones SNOW WHAT. After we read the story, I introduced students to a Maker Mat. With the Maker Mats, I let students choose an item from the mat to create. As this was the first time using the Maker Mat with this age level, I had students work by themselves so they could get used to self-selecting and independent building based on their choice. The items that I selected for this Maker Mat were based off of Spanish words that were in the story. I put the English words under the Spanish words so students could make connections between the images, the Spanish words, and the English words. Students loved the story and used Plus Plus blocks to build creations from the Maker Mat. After we were done with our Maker Mat activity, we had some free build time and they wanted to see what I could make from the Maker Mat. I tried my best at Skippyjon Jones! This week with my littles, we read the story Bunny Slopes. This book has been a favorite of my own kiddos for a long time, so I knew I would have to incorporate it during this winter season. I had seen several people share on Instagram about making a hill out of poster board and students designing something (I told my kiddos I didn't want to label it as a sled or something because I didn't want to limit their imaginations) to slide down the hill. I knew this would be perfect for my groups! I fancied up two pieces of poster board that I taped together with some trees, a mug, and snowflakes I cut out on my Cricut. I added a little "finish line" at the end (the colors coincidentally matched the blankets in the book!). Students designed some sort of transportation that would go down the hill as well as keep their little bunny mini eraser safe inside. We had many trial and error attempts where either the bunny fell out or the mode of transportation fell apart (or both). I was so impressed how the students did not get frustrated when things came apart, but rather picked up their pieces, went back to their table, and started fixing or redesigning. We found that larger, sturdier modes of transportation kept the bunny safe and didn't fall apart opposed to the smaller structures. Engineering for the win! The third installment of elementary STEAM PBIS celebration activities! I feel like this might be the most boring looking blog post, as I do not have pictures to go along with the activities (I wasn't there for the celebration to capture pictures). Either way, I am still sharing! :) This month I went with a winter theme...even though we don't have any snow right now. The joys of the January highs and lows in the midwest! 3rd GradeActivity: Bunny Slopes (Similar to the Bunny Slopes activity we did in STEAM class.) Materials:
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4th GradeActivity: Winter Task Cards (Similar to the Winter Task cards activity) Materials:
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5th GradeActivity: Fastest Falling Snowflake
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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! Student DesignsAs Winter Break and potential snow days are upon many of us, I thought I would put together a Winter Break/Snow Day STEAM Challenge sheet (a smaller version of my Summer STEAM Calendar of Activities). I know that snow days (and sometimes multiple snow days) can come at anytime, so I know as a parent, I like to have ideas prepared for the inevitable "I am bored" makes it way from mouths of my sweet babes. So why not engage their minds at home with some fun winter-themed STEAM challenges? These are great for elementary students and can be completed with siblings or individually. The goal behind having STEAM challenges at the ready is to keep students brains active and engaged. These challenges do not require technology and most can be completed with everyday things around the house. If you don't have something around that the challenge states, no worry - improvise! STEAM often requires designing, redesigning, and often changing something you were working on for something entirely new. Click on the button below to download the Winter Snow Day STEAM Challenges sheet. The challenge sheets are provided in English and Spanish.
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! So far this winter has been a bit disappointing for us in terms of snow accumulation. We have had a little snow, but not enough to truly get outside and have fun sledding and playing outside. Just cold enough (and some days icy), to be better off inside where it is warm. As the forecast for this weekend and next week includes the potential for some significant snowfall in our area, I thought it would be fun to do a snowflake activity with my 4th grade friends. We started off by watching a read aloud of the book Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. Kids loved hearing the story of how he began working with snowflakes and how it took him pretty much a lifetime to accomplish the work that he completed. We talked about how snowflakes are each unique, but all have 6 branches. After watching the video and having a brief discussion about snowflakes, I told the students they would be working with a partner to create an unique snowflake using a 3D printing pen. Before I even showed the students how to use the pens, I asked them to work with their partner to create a snowflake design on a scrap piece of paper. Some things that worked really well for us in this activity:
Since we were creating snowflakes today, I decided to wear my fun snowflake leggings (with my simple example to show them before beginning the project). The kids loved them and thought it was cool to see different patterns...what I did not expect was to constantly be turning around and having a student staring at my calves...I mean snowflakes. I guess I walked right into that one! :) This week was our first week back after our holiday break, so I thought it might be a good idea to ease back into our STEAM activities. I created some winter-themed task cards that could be used with any kind of STEAM resource, but I chose to use LEGOs as I recently received a DonorsChoose project for them so I had enough for the whole class to build at the same time. I like having a variety of resources, but having enough is a game changer in teaching students that it everyone can be successful in different ways with the same resources. With this activity, I gave the students the choice to work in pairs of in a group of 3-4 (based on the number of people in their table group). Students did a great job of choosing their groups and working together. I thought being off for a bit on break would be a little rough on getting back into the routine of communicating and collaborating, but the students did an awesome job! I asked them to use the task cards to build the given structures however they wanted to (it did not have to look just like the picture), but they had to show a teacher before they could move on to the next card. Some groups had to do some revising on their creations as we could not really tell what they were, significant details were missing, or was sloppy work. Those groups really only had to be send back once as they spent more time on their future designs, making sure they were meeting expectations. Some of the awesome things I saw while students were building:
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