Spheros

With the Spheros, students used the coding apps to help their Spheros navigate mazes, run obstacle courses and bowl down objects. They also used them to explore distance and angles by setting the length of travel or degrees of angles to turn. Just letting students explore the many things Spheros can use was amazing! I also had my class be "Sphero ambassadors" by sharing them with a first grade, a third grade and another fifth grade class.

I loved how engaged the students were with the Spheros! I enjoyed watching them come up with ways to "challenge" the Spheros to run mazes and navigate around obstacles. I also loved that concepts such as measurement and geometry could be explored with the Spheros. It was a great way to develop teamwork and encourage kids to "think outside the box."

One challenge that provided some real-life problem-solving skills happened when we had the Spheros in the cafeteria. Some of the Spheros went underneath doors into locked storage areas. The kids had to lie on the floor and use the controls to rescue the Spheros!

Quotes from students: "You can do different modes on the control panel like making the Sphero change color or bounce on its own." "You can make the Spheros do many different tricks like play music and jump around to it. You can do different missions to earn the special currency." "There were different apps and things you could do, like make the Sphero go bowling. You could do coding with them."

They LOVED it! It took teamwork to make adjustments to the programming.

One student (a French speaker) translated part of his presentation about robotics and had the Sphero speak in English. After seeing that, another child used the sound to record a dog barking for her poetry presentation. The sixth graders were very responsible and took charge of storing all the parts and recharging them each day. One child, not usually a leader organized this. Very popular. Everyone got a chance to use them.