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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

STEM

So every year, I have a list of about 83 things that I want to try/change/do better/etc. Then, the year starts, and let's face it, it's survival for the first quarter. Maybe even longer!

One thing that was not on my list--implementing STEM. Don't get me wrong, I loooove teaching science and my kids love doing "experiments", but it just wasn't on the list. Well, needless to say, the list changed!

I found this super easy, very engaging unit on TpT, and I. Love. It.

We made boats...


We used the gumboils as "people" to see which boats would hold the most people. It ended up being a two day venture, because the boats are the first day were a flop! But the second day, you could tell how much they learned about the structure of a boat and they worked together so much better!


Then, we made turkey "fortresses" as my kids liked to call them.




They were so great! Basically the room was a disaster of Legos, linking cubes, place value manipulatives, etc. But they amazed me! I loved watching them figure out how to manipulate the objects and debate on who had the better idea.

Go check out Brooke Brown's STEM units on TpT! I will probably be picking up the December unit soon!