Help me give my students a variety of materials with which they can create solutions for our STEM challenges and with which they can just be creative. Students need to be hands-on to problem solve and persevere!
My students are Kindergarten through Fifth Graders at a public elementary school in the micro-urban city of Champaign. I am the Enrichment Teacher using an Enrichment for All model which allows for and encourages enrichment opportunities for all students at my school.
My K-5 students are imaginative, curious, tenacious and persevering in all that they do.
They have a million questions about things and with more exposure to real-life challenges in class, they are learning to plan, implement and test their solutions.
The last two years, my 70+ fifth graders designed and created an 18 hole miniature golf course that the entire school was able to play. They used recycled and repurposed materials including the tee grass made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. Our 4th grade created a cardboard arcade. Our 3rd grade used sticks and recyclables to create covered wagons and a raft to ford the river (a stream near our school). Our primary classrooms joined in with hands-on projects with graphs, letters, and STEM around fairy tales.
My Project
These materials will be used by Kindergarten-5th grade as resources for building to tackle STEM challenges in class. Each material will be boxed separately and student groups will be able to choose their material based on their group's challenge.
For example, if the challenge is to build a structure for a bird to keep her eggs safe from a predator, student groups will look at the choices of materials.
Then, they try to chose a box with which they can meet the challenge. They will be able to reflect on the success of their choice and their structure after the challenge is complete.
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