Monday, February 14, 2022
101 Days STEAM Challenges
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
3D Printing to Inspire Future STEAM Careers!
Our classroom has received funding from the Lyda Hill Philanthropy to bring in 3D printing pens and a large 3D printer! This is a continuation of the project started last year where students built Legos. Now students will embark on building a Lego kit, drawing up or choosing an object from the kit, and creating it with 3D pens or the 3D printer. The world continues to move in the direction of more and more technology. My goal is to inspire future STEAM careers at a young age and allow students with interests in the area an opportunity to excel at what they love!
In the past I have used the school's 3D printer to create different projects. One of my favorites was working on a senior project with a student to create ornaments from scratch. So far this printer has proved to be extremely easier to use and much larger than the previous one. Of course we had to do our test piece as a small Pikachu sculpture.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Virtual Teaching
This year we embarked in uncharted territories as our district offered in-person, live, and recorded learning all from the same classroom to provide education during the pandemic. We were trained to use google classroom and created ways that students could safely and effectively learn on all different platforms offered.
Sadly, our classroom was forced to shut once more and move to fully virtual. While it feels weird teaching from an empty room, I know it is for the best to keep everyone safe. The empty classroom was starting to get to me and I wanted to find a way to make it more exciting for both myself and my students! I have taken the jungle animals I received through a grant and set them up in every student's desk. The kids loved seeing the animals at their desk and it made the classroom feel more lively.
At Halloween we had a student dress up game. Students practiced their writing skills by creating clues to who they were. They were then asked to read them with their google meets camera off. Each student got a chance to guess before the big reveal. To spice things up even more - I dressed up as a skeleton. My students have come to know Bart our life size jungle skeleton. I found a way to rig Bart to the fan in my classroom and have him move while I was off camera. What a fun day and brought some light into a sad situation. I tell parents throughout the year, education is extremely important but not to forget the little thinks that made kids smile. These are the things they remember and keep them engaged!
Monday, April 6, 2020
Lego Lending Program
I am very excited to announce that our classroom received funding for a Lego lending program. Schools are currently closed and I wanted to bring something to cheer students up as we all face quarantine and unprecedented times. Students will be given the opportunity to borrow Lego kits of various skylines around the world. This will promote family building time, engineering concepts, direction following skills, and a sense of accomplishments at the finish of the project - all while learning about another country and city (my favorite)!
Update: We have received more funding to continue the project thank you to All State Foundation and Lyda Hill Philanthropies. I have been able to add Harry Potter, Star Wars, Minecraft, 3-in-1 Creator sets, and many more kits for students to explore. These all range from easy to advanced! Students are already hard at work building and learning about different sets. Make sure to check out the update as students design and print related objects on our new 3D printer thanks to the Lyda Hill Philanthropies IF/THEN initiative. Each kit has a carrying case that students will be able to transport home safely. The boxes will be out on display so students can go shopping and see the actual boxes. A few weeks in and they are building like crazy!
The students have started calling me "Amazon Package Queen" from the amount of packages being delivered from the grants. They may be right! I made a stack of the first round for fun to see how big it could get. Ultimately we had to take the boxes down to make room for new ones. The students "sanitized" and safely walked the boxes down to be recycled and to be used in other STEAM projects for the older grades.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Ready, Set, Caterpillar Race
Monday, April 8, 2019
First Grade in 360
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Science Fair
1. World Landmark Engineers
For the past few years, I have been having bi-weekly STEAM landmark competitions. It has been a fabulously exciting way to get students thinking. Every other week I introduce a new famous landmark that I have visited. Together I show them some pictures and learn about the history. Students are then given opportunities during their free time and centers to choose to work on the project. Each student will use QR codes I created to learn more about the landmark. Next, they fill out a planning sheet and create a plan. Then they try building their landmark with the different materials from the STEAM bins. Finally, they take a photo and upload it. At the end of the two weeks we go through all of the projects and the top few are selected for our Hall of Fame.
At the science fair we wanted to share this experience so that other teachers and families could see and have the opportunity to incorporate it themselves. Students ran the centers and explained to others how to give it a try. This was so exciting to see elementary students so involved for the first time at the science fair.
2. Butterfly Project
As many of you know, I am extremely passionate about butterflies and restoring their habitats. Each year we raise butterflies and release them. Last year our first grade classrooms planted and restored a butterfly habitat at a local park. This year the new first grade studied the monarch caterpillars we found at the park. Together we tracked their migration down to Mexico (if you would like to read more about this refer to my other blog post!)
The second grade came down to help create a student made bulletin to teach those at the Science Fair all about the migration track and how they helped! It was amazing to see this come together because it was almost entirely student made.