News Features
Mrs. Russell's Friends
MARCH 2025
WRAPPING UP SOme PROJECTS AND BEGINNING NEW ONES
Mrs. Russell's Friends
MARCH 2025
WRAPPING UP SOme PROJECTS AND BEGINNING NEW ONES
KINDERGARTEN
Students will make, build and create as they learn about being flexible thinkers and how to tackle new challenges.
How can I use my creative mind to think fluently, use flexibility and originality, and elaborate?
Students have been studying how to be a "maker." They have been exploring consumable and non-consumable materials for use in the GT classroom while tackling challenges presented by their teacher. To bring in the creative side, they also tranformed their initials into a picture that tells a story.
Initials Transformation
March Maker Mat Lego Build
~A Car Engine that Pumps Gas~
1ST GRADE
Students will share their self-simile poems and portraits with peers.
How does each part of my portrait connect to my character traits, likes, strengths, gifts, talents, and genius type?
Students celebrated the completion of their self-simile project by reading their poetry and quizzing each other on how each 3D object represents a personality trait within the poem. Next they will be creating a book modeled after the simile story called, My Dog Is As Smelly As Socks, to include similes about their pets/and or family members.
Self Simile Portrait
Self Simile Portrait
2ND GRADE
Students will explore manufacturing and entrepreneurial skills as they engineer a prototype of an arcade game.
How will my arcade game design funtion and be enoyed when friends play?
Students arcade games are functioning, decorated, and ready to play. They are excited to share with peers, make some "money" as game managers, and reward their players with tickets. These games are simply a replica of popular arcade games. Instead, all games have been creatively designed and each one is unique in itself.
Hit The Spider with The Ball Game
Arcade Game Day
3RD GRADE
Students will complete their mystery person research and begin designing their mystery box.
How can I create a mystery box that gives clues, but is still mysterious enough to stump my fellow detectives?
Students are beginning the create and design phase of the project where they will use their research slides to make a mystery box about a famous person in STEM. The top of the box will include a question that gives subtle hints and attempts to get the guesser guessing about who the person from STEM might be.
Sample Mystery Questions for Guessers
Top Secret: Preparing the Mystery Box
4TH GRADE
Students research the man behind their next project - Rube Goldberg.
Who was Rube Goldberg and did he really invent a machine that causes a complex chain of reactions?
Students deisgned their own digital news reports about Rube Goldberg and then presented to peers. They learned the man behind these famous machines was a cartoonist who actually never built any of his wild "inventions." However, in today's time, many others have worked to bring these chain reactions to life. Students will be challenged to build a vertical model with various materials and several simple machines.
Rube Goldberg Presentations
Rube Goldberg Presentations
5TH GRADE
Students research Mistakes That Worked and will present their findings to peers with a skit and props.
What does it mean to fail forward and what "mistakes" have atually worked in the world?
Students researched successful products that were originally, mistakenly discovered, or invented through failure. They created animated slides with their researched information and built props to accompany their skits and presentations.
3D Printed Prop for Velcro Invention
Presenting on the Ice Cream Cone