No Worksheet Week

The last few weeks have been so busy with testing, S.T.E.A.M. challenges, hands on learning, and No Worksheet Week. My students have amazed me with their perseverance and creativity. Following are two projects that I'd like to share.

S.T.E.A.M. Boat Challenge (Thank you to Tracy Campbell for sharing this great idea with me!)

I started the Challenge by having the kids draw a shape or stick figure on a small piece of card stock and cutting it out. Then I introduced the first part of the challenge; they had to build a boat for their card stock character and place it in a tub of water without letting the character get wet. Students designed boats out of tin foil, popsicles sticks, chenille wire, glue and tape. Once students went through the engineering design process we did a "remix" and students competed to see how many pennies could be added to their boats without sinking them. Students documented the engineering process by creating a book in Book Creator. They were able to export them as pdfs and upload them to an assignment I created in Google Classroom.

Impromptu Outdoor Math Lesson

Our outdoor math lesson wasn't quite as exciting, but it was a great example of taking a concept that I needed to review (fractions on a number line) and doing it in a way that was fun and didn't involve sitting at a desk completing a worksheet. I gathered my group outside with whiteboards, markers, sidewalk chalk, and iPads. First, I demonstrated drawing a number line and had the kids tell me where zero and one go. Then I made some tick marks and the students wrote the fractions that they represented as I stood on each one. We followed that with another number line and more tick marks. The students helped me to write the fraction for each one and then we played a game where they had to sit on certain fractions. Finally the students broke into groups and created their own number lines. They documented their knowledge by taking a picture of it. Later errors were corrected in Skitch and they projected and shared their images with each other.

I LOVE MY JOB!