Help me give my students the opportunity to take their coding skills to a higher level! The Sphero Mini Robots are perfect size for table top story telling and narrating processes such as life cycles.
$469 goal
This project expired on June 25, 2020.
This project expired on June 25, 2020.
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
Children are naturally curious. From the time they are born, children are eager to learn, experience the world, and figure out how things work. My students arrive at school each day with a smile and eagerness to learn and grow. As an educator, it is my privilege and responsibility to help nurture and maintain this natural curiosity. For the past two years however, my students and school has been affected by the reduction enrollment and school funding due to Hurricane Harvey.
On August 25, 2017, my town, school, and students were directly impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
The school district was forced to close down for seven weeks in order to repair the buildings from this devastating storm. Many students were displaced from their homes and unable to attend schools in neighboring towns. Two years later, the overall impact of Harvey still ripples through our school with decreased enrollment and extreme budget cuts that affect the availability of quality learning materials available to them.
My Project
My students have learned how to code with full sized Sphero SPRK+ spherical robots and are natural coders. However, the full sized Spheros have their limits and require a great deal of work space. With the Sphero Mini, I can take their coding skills to a higher level with smaller-scaled desk top projects that use the Mini Spheros as a narration device.
Coding in elementary school helps students to develop computational thinking skills, by identifying real problems, creating procedures for problem solving, and automating solutions.
Integrating these skills into core subject areas is my main purpose in the STEAM Lab. In one project, students will draw the life cycle of a plant on paper and code the robot to land on each phase of the life cycle, identify the phase, and explain how the plant is growing and changing in each phase. In another project, students will dress up the robots, and re-tell the story of the Three Little Pigs, with the dialogue and movements coded into the robots. In addition, classroom teachers will also learn how they can use these robots in their core subject areas to enhance their lessons through after school workshops and coaching.
The desired outcome is for students to experience the use of coding outside the STEAM Lab in core subject areas to enhance learning and promote computational thinking and problem solving. It will also encourage classroom teachers to expand their repertoire of teaching materials and techniques.
Sphero Mini (Black) App-Enabled Programmable Robot Ball - STEM Educational Toy for Kids Ages 8 & Up - Drive, Game & Code with Sphero Play & Edu App
• Amazon Business
$40.30
9
$362.70
Materials cost
$362.70
Vendor shipping charges
FREE
Sales tax
$0.00
3rd party payment processing fee
$5.44
Fulfillment labor & materials
$30.00
Total project cost
$398.14
Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms
$70.26
Total project goal
$468.40
Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Messinger and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
