4th Grade
4th graders completing their first day of STEM challenge. They had to build a tower of cups without touching them!
After reading The Most Magnificent Thing and days of planning, we built our very own most magnificent thing in the Makerspace. We then spent some time in our tech lab working with Google Slides to create an advertisement for our new innovation!
Fourth graders recently worked in the Tech Lab with Google Sheets. We learned about conditional formatting and how to use it to create "pixel art". Check out some of our names below!
In December, 4th grade read How to Catch an Elf by Adam Wallace. Then, students were challenged with building an elf trap, with an extra challenge of including one of six different simple machines in their design. They had to design, gather materials, and build their trap. After construction, students tested their designs by attempting to trap a small wind up toy. Once we tested, groups discussed various improvements they would make to their elf traps. Check out some of our progress below!
To the left: an elf trap containing a pulley and a trap door with a candy cane as bait
To the right: working hard to build their trap with candy cane bait and a falling box
To the right: a digital design plan created by Zac and McCoy - complete with a pulley system and wheel and axle
Starting in our 3rd nine weeks, students began learning about computer programming and how to write computer code. Initially, we completed a few "unplugged" activities where 4th graders learned how to really break down their directions and give them step-by-step (similar to how a computer program is written). Then we moved onto working with code.org, an online resource where students write their own computer programs, code their very own games, practice problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, and have a little fun as well! The next step after becoming comfortable with code.org is our STEM program robots - the Wonder Workshop Dash robots. Students will work to code these robots to complete tasks and move through obstacles all while using a drag-and-drop coding language (similar to code.org) called Blockly. I will continue to post some of this work below!
Playground Project
Students worked hard to engaged in the engineering design process for the brand new playground being planned out and built here at St. Henry Elementary School. We began by researching accessible and inclusive playground equipment that students of all abilities can use. They found equipment like rubber tiles (instead of mulch), ramps, zip lines, swings, and more! Then we learned how to create a Google Form and used it to build a survey that was presented to grades K-3 to gather data on which kinds of playground equipment they most enjoy! After all that data collection, each class decided on 5 "Must-Haves" for their playground. They worked to defend their choices and back them up using the data we collected. Then each class designed and built model of their "ideal" playground. It was A LOT of work but oh so worth it. We can't wait to see which of our ideas will be included in the new design!
