See What We Are Up To In STEM

Toggle through the pictures below to see what we have been up to in STEM this year.

February

This February Kindergarten learned about underwater homes. First grade coded using Sphero Indi, including using measurement and angles. Second grade continued with VexGo creations starting the month by making rocket ships. Third grade finished up a challenging paper folding project and then started programing with Sphero Bolt. Fourth and fifth grades finished their Sphero stories and moved on to stop motion projects.

January

We had so much fun in January learning all kinds of new things.

Kindergarten started learning about animal homes. They had a chance to make burrows and nests. While they were working on homes, first grade was learning about deciduous and coniferous trees. First graders learned how to tell the trees apart in many ways. Then students helped me add leaves to our classroom deciduous tree as well as make a tree of their own.

Second and Third grade learned perseverance as they worked on magic paper folded orbs and cubes. Second grade then moved on to building with VexGo. Students are learning to document diagrams and processes for building a variety of structures.

Fourth and fifth grade started the year off using Sphero Bolt. This orb shaped robot can move, light up, and talk. Students spent a few weeks learning to control their Bolt so that they could write a story and animate it.

Santa Launcher

Light Up the Christmas Tree

December

What an exciting month. We started the month with students K-2 creating decorations for their holiday concert. The last weeks before break they were able to create snowmen, silence bells, make gingerbread houses, and create igloos. Grade 3 learned about the science of snow and tried to catch an elf. Grade 4 helped Santa with a few problems. Fifth grade has been working on circuitry through Snap Circuits and Christmas light circuit creation.

The buttons above will lead to a physics game where you can use a reindeer to kick Santa into the chimney and a circuitry game where you try to light a Christmas tree all the way.

November

Coding was key this November. Students worked on "unplugged" coding activities where they gave directions to make their way through mazes and challenges. They worked with Indi, our color coded robot, who moves based on a series of color tiles that students put out for him. The older students will soon start working with Bolt, a spherical robot who they use the computer to code.

Fifth Grade was finishing up a flood proof housing project they started back in October. They had to test, budget, build and present houses that would cost under $500 and withstand flooding. Many creative solutions were created for this problem.

Since November does have Thanksgiving, we also did some fun Thanksgiving challenges to end the month.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

October

Engineering and architecture are the words for the month. Fourth graders made some amazing moving structures that we would love for you to see at conference time. Now they are working on using lego to expand their knowledge of how moving parts work. Kindergarten and fifth grade are both working on home designs. Second grade is on their second week building bridges and are getting to test them with "indi" one of our very special robots.

In addition to our builds, students have MakerSpace Friday where they get to use various materials to create what they would like. It has been fun watching them expand on what other grade levels are doing through their play.

September

Students learned about how properties of some materials (crayon wax) make them resist other materials (paint).

Students in several of our grades made towers out of a variety of materials.

Third, fourth, and fifth graders had to use teamwork in order to write on paper with a marker holding only strings that were attached to the marker. They had the opportunity to write a letter, then a word, and finally a silly sentence.