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.
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.
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As I was planning for the weekly STEM time I have with my usual 4th grade class, I was feeling the need for something a bit different. And I was feeling a bit drained as Spring Break was right around the corner. So something new it was! This activity could be done with pretty much any building resources you have on hand, but these were the ones I used for this specific set up.For this activity, I wanted to focus on writing and following directions. Although when I do STEM/STEAM/STREAM activities, I try to leave things open-ended for the most part because I would not want to stifle anyone's creativity. Sometimes there is a need for some directions though - especially when safety and care/use of resources is involved! For this activity, I set up some scenarios for students using picture cards. I gave each pair of students a picture card in which they had to:
It was so interesting to see the changes in how the students wrote their directions from the first write to the second. We took some time after the first write to talk about what didn't go well with the directions and what would make a better set of directions. The second set was definitely improved! Student Example #1Student Example #2This was a different kind of STEAM activity than what I have previously done with this group. It was a nice change of pace and next time I would let them build their own creations instead of using predetermined set-ups. I would also change up which materials I used for creation building - maybe use LEGOs, Creation Cubes, different wooden blocks, or pretty much anything from my STEAM building stash! I wasn't sure how long it would take for the writing directions part of the activity, but doing two rotations in about 45 minutes worked perfectly. It was a great way to wrap up our weekly STEM time before spring break!
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