Collaboratory Cubs Conquer TECHSPO

Some of our 4th grade Collaboratory Cubs and their families took a little road trip down to the NJ TECHSPO last week!  They created and delivered an amazing presentation titled "Be Extraordinary" that showcased our TES Collaboratory and some of the cool things we have been doing!  The students did an amazing job, and I couldn't be more proud of them!  

You can see their presentation here:  

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQqm6F_veo9CJ2gJa6XBEjNE5X4UBEB0V1_BIZZOhp3adoFb0buyXmEDJKkAhfSjnwIQTXa8NYLJLWK/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000 

Also, take a peek at some great pictures from the trip:

Our Newest Collaboratory Adventures

The Collaboratory was moving and shaking this week!  Take a look at the cool things that we did:

Our first graders continued gathering background information about light by exploring how light interacts with different materials, using the terms absorb, reflect, and transmit.  The students are trying to learn as much as they can about light and optical engineering so that they can design and build their own lighting systems later in this unit.

Our second graders did some research this week to see what special projects environmental engineers are currently working on all around the world.  Then, the students became environmental engineers and started making blueprints for other projects that they believe would help solve some other environmental issues.  When they presented their ideas to their peers, we pretended they were on Shark Tank and they had to answer questions and further explain their reasoning behind certain parts of their blueprints.  We even reached out to a local environmental engineering firm with our ideas!

Our third graders continued with their Designing Submersibles unit by exploring the concepts of volume, mass, and density!  We even used my own lunchbox to model the concept of density like Nicholas did with Thia's cooler in the story we are reading called "Despina Makes a Splash".  The students also engaged in some test experiments to see how different items reacted to being placed in water!

Our fourth graders used what the learned about the best materials for making sails to actually build and test out their sail designs.  These sail designs will be used in their big windmill project at the end of this unit!  

We are looking forward to another exciting week in the TES Collaboratory!

Happy New Year!

The new year is off to an exciting start!  Although we had some interesting weather events that shortened our first week back, this past week we were full steam ahead!  Take a peek at what each grade level has been doing:

In Pre-School, our students are learning about different modes of transportation, so they created planes, trains, boats, and cars in our Collaboratory MakerSpace! They even used different recycled boxes as their bases to connect to a story they read with Mrs. Valente about using your imagination to redesign uses for boxes!

In kindergarten, students continued working on their Engineering is Elementary unit titled "Designing Bridges".  They used what they learned about forces on bridges to test out a variety of bridge designs, using different materials, to see which were the most effective! 

In first grade, our students took a break from exploring lighting systems (because of the delayed opening schedule), and they tackled an important and relevant challenge:  How might we help people safely get around on snowy and icy days?  Some amazing ideas included heated boots that melted snow as you walked, a heated snow vacuum, and hovercraft boots!  I loved being able to watch our students tackle empathy-driven, real-world problems and come up with such creative solutions!

In second grade, our students continued with their Engineering is Elementary unit titled "Designing Water Filters" by thinking like environmental engineers!  They brainstormed possible solutions to problems that currently exist in our environment.  They even researched some projects that environmental engineers are working on around the world right now!

In third grade, our students began their Engineering is Elementary unit titled "Designing Submersibles".  We began by reading the first part of our empathy-focused story called "Despina Makes a Splash", and then we did some research on different submersible designs.  We can't wait to continue our journey into the world of ocean engineering!

In fourth grade, our students continued working on their Engineering is Elementary unit titled "Designing Windmills" by testing different sail designs and materials on our wind-powered "test track"!

We are looking forward to what the rest of 2018 has in store for us!