5th grade steAm activity!

STEM or STEAM? Art is all around us and may be found in some unusual places, but isn't that what makes life interesting? On Friday two of my fabulous 5th grade classes got to express their artistic/creative sides while reviewing a PARCC related science topic: States of Matter!

Their task was to create a rap or a song that reviewed the states of matter and their properties. To begin the lesson, students watched a few preselected examples of other kids across the world putting their own spin on the states of matter.

Here are a few example videos:
States of Matter Rap Example 1
States of Matter Rap Example 2

Students were then given 1 minute to create their own groups. Once groups were made, I gave each group a large sheet of paper to brainstorm and get all their ideas down. As I slowly made my way around to each group the enthusiasm and collaboration throughout the room was electrifying. Students weren't holding back for a single second! I heard beats, singing, science facts, and laughter. I saw students working in cohesive groups, listening to each other, and enjoying learning through art.

In a 45 minute period students were able to work in small teams to write their lyrics, create beats, research, collaborate, create movements, and perform a practice run before their classmates! 

Sneak peek:  

I can't wait to see students perform their final products! Ask your 5th grade student to sing or rap their states of matter song for you. 

-Mrs. Henderson

3rd Grade: Pendulums

This week in STEM, 3rd graders continued their exploration into force by engineering pendulums. To begin our lesson students logged onto their padlet wall and were promoted to watch two short videos and take notes/write down questions on their worksheet. Here is a link to our wall: Pendulums (last week when students had finished their work they were prompted to draw what they thought a pendulum was so you may notice some student artwork posted below the video links, take a look!)

Once students had watched the videos I allowed a few minutes for students to turn and talk with their peers so they could discuss their notes/questions. We then regrouped and I answered any unanswered questions.

To begin the engineering process students were placed into small groups and instructed to design a pendulum using all the materials that were going to be given to them without seeing them. I have found that if I show students their supplies or an example beforehand it limits their creativity and they tend to copy the example.

MISSION: Design a pendulum using ALL of the following materials: Ruler, ball, tape, and string. 

Students had to list the steps they were going to take and draw their prototype with accurate measurements and labels.

During our next meeting students went right into building and testing their pendulums. Students had to complete a lab sheet along with their experiment.

Ask your 3rd grader what type of force cause their pendulum to move the fastest!

Check back later if you would like to see student lab sheets! I will upload some when I return to the classroom on Monday : )

-Mrs. Henderson

2nd Grade: States of Matter Lab

This week in STEM, 2nd grade students completed a lab experimenting with different states of matter. Students worked in small groups rotating through 5 different stations where they completed an experiment and filled out their workbooks. Our goal was to experiment with water in various states and the temperatures that cause these states. We have been working with states of matter as well as heating and cooling so I felt this was a nice way to tie up our unit before we move on. 

Here is our workspace set up before students began!

 Station 1: Water Bath

Station 2: Heat Moves (Not Pictured)

Station 3: Thermometer

 Station 4: Cube Size and Melting Time

Station 5: Bath Temperature and Melting Time

STUDENTS ROTATING THROUGH THE VARIOUS STATIONS:

Ask your 2nd grader which station they enjoyed most!

-Mrs. Henderson

1st Graders: Can You See It?

1st graders spent two days learning about and experimenting with light. To begin our exploration we created a group brainstorm using POPPLET.COM. I sent home a copy of our group brainstorm as well as a short explanation so that students could share what they learned about POPPLET.COM with their grownups.

Using tinfoil, saran wrap, wax paper, and a mirror I created 4 different manipulatives for students to better understand light and light absorbency.

Key Vocabulary:
* Light
* Light rays
* Transparent
* Translucent
* Opaque
* Reflective
* Illumination

After allowing students to play with the manipulatives and flashlights we then created a 4-fold with definitions and examples. Here are some of my 1st graders 4-folds:

Inside each flap there is  a very simple kid-friendly definitions! Ask your 1st grader what each of their new STEM words means.

During our next STEM day we continued with light by doing an experiment where we used pinhole boxes, flashlights, and our amazing predicting skills. As students entered the classroom I had drawn all the shades and shut all the lights off. Students were then prompted to imagine that they were in a room with no windows with a friend and all of a sudden the lights went out. After spending a minute imagining what it would be like, they had to brainstorm how they would see their friend.

After sharing all the ways they would see their friend, they came to the conclusion that they needed some source of light to make it possible! YAY! They got the big picture : )

Then to make the concept concrete, that light must be present in order to see, we broke off into small groups to experiment with the pinhole boxes. Students had 3 short experiments to conduct, but first they had to make predictions! 

Here is the worksheet we used to write down our discoveries

At first students thought that I didn't put anything into the box, but when they finally got to the 2nd step and were able to use the flashlights, they became very excited to try and find what I had placed in the back of each box! Ask your 1st grader what item they were able to see in the dark! : )

-Mrs. Henderson

Kindergarten: Little Explorers

This week in STEM Mrs. Chirco's Kindergarten students explored forces and interactions through venn diagrams and bar graphs. To Start our lesson we talked about how things move and brainstormed all the different ways we could think of. Once we shared all of our background knowledge I introduced students to the term "Venn Diagram". Before we began our venn diagram we worked on a few practice ones to familiarize ourselves with how we could use the diagram to compare and contrast two things outside of STEM class. Students came up with some very creative ideas during our practice!

 Students working together to place pictures on the venn diagram

Once we were comfortable with how to use a venn diagram we began comparing and contrasting pushes and pulls. Each student was given a picture showing pushing, pulling, or both and they had to place them where they thought they went and then share their reasoning. Students blew me away with their out side of the box thinking and logic they placed behind their choices. Once all of the pictures were placed we stood back as a group and decided if any of the pictures needed to be moved and why. Students had a lot of fun reasoning why they would move a particular picture.

When we were done making changes to our venn diagram we then moved on to making a bar graph!


The question we graphed was "What is your favorite way to move?". Each student was given an apple and had to decided which way they liked to move out of the 5 options: Swing, Slide, Ride, Skate, or Jump. After each student had placed their apple above their favorite way to move we then broke down the graph and started comparing and contrasting the various outcomes.

OUR FINDINGS:
* Most students like to jump
* 9 students like to jump
* Only 2 students like to ride
* The same amount of students like to slide and skate
* 4 students like to swing
* More students like to jump than swing
* 5 more students like to jump and swing

To end our lesson students created pictures in Tux Paint and shared their favorite ways to move. 

Ask your kindergarten student what their favorite way to move is!

-Mrs. Henderson

Update: 5th Grade Engineers

5th grade engineers have continued working on their recycled simple machine playgrounds. Their task today was:

OUR GOAL TODAY

1) Make sure all playground structures are simple machines

2) Label all playground structures with both their simple machine name as well as their playground name on a notecard. 

3) On the same notecard write a short sentence about how that particular simple machine works.

Notecards must be taped to the structures!

5th Grade Engineers at Work

Students were so excited about their playgrounds that they continued working on them during their recess! Please ask your 5th grade student which simple machine they were in charge of making for their playground! 

-Mrs. Henderson

Adventures with Padlet.Com

I recently went to a training at Beverly High School where I learned about an interactive wall students could collaborate on that continuously updated, called Padlet.

On Monday 3rd & 4th grade students were introduced to the concept of a virtual wall and how it may be helpful to them when working on class projects. To explore the website as a class I created a private wall that students were only able to access by using a special link they had to type into the address bar of their server. Students were then prompted to minimize their screens and create a picture in Paint. Once students were done with their pictures they had to upload them to the wall with their names.

Take a look at 4 of our Padlet walls: 
3 Sweeney Padlet Wall
4 Egan Padlet Wall
3 Zieff Padlet Wall
3 Migneault Padlet Wall

They had so much fun watching their peers artwork pop up on their screens! Ask your student what they learned about Padlet!

-Mrs. Henderson