Loving, Learning, and Leading
The mad dash between Valentine's Day and Read Across America Week has quickly become one of my favorite times of year. It's the time of the year when we are finishing up our first major project in each grade level and we are squeezing in some fun themed challenges as well. Take a look at what we have been up to in the Collaboratory!
In Pre-K, our youngest coders had a problem to solve: How can you help the Hungry Hexbugs get to their Valentine's Day candy? The students did an incredible job designing their own creative paths for the Hexbugs to crawl through to get to their candy!
When Read Across America Week came around, our Pre-K students were challenged to build the tallest Dr. Seuss hat that they could out of index cards and red cups! It was a great way for our students to practice fine motor skills and perseverance!
Our kindergarten engineers had the chance to use what they learned about balancing and distributing weight from their bridge unit to build a special Valentine's Day bridge that only used one pier! I was so impressed by how many candy hearts they could fit on their bridges!
During Read Across America Week, our kindergarten designers read The Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss and had a special Makerspace Challenge: How might you create a new, unique place for one of the characters in the story to sleep? I was so impressed by their creativity! Their designs looked like they could have been featured in a Dr. Seuss book!
Our first grade optical engineers have officially completed their lighting systems projects! They worked hard to use their mirrors in the best ways possible to amplify the light from their mini flashlights to brighten up their Maker-Caves! With each improvement, they were determined to improve their light intensity score! I was very proud of their hard work!
During Read Across America Week, our first grade makers were challenged to re-design the hat for the Cat in the Hat to make it more useful, more fashionable, or more comfortable. I'm not sure who had more fun with this challenge: the students or me?
Our second grade environmental engineers completed their water filtration systems! They really applied what they learned from their first trials to improve their designs to make their water filtration systems more effective!
Our third grade ocean engineers completed and tested their submersibles, and I loved being able to watch the reactions of the students when their submersibles were able to successfully retrieve the sunken packages at the bottom of the model ocean. For me, the best moments in the Collaboratory are the ones where I can watch the students' faces as they realize that all of their hard work has paid off!
Our fourth graders have been working hard on testing and improving their windmill designs! We have had quite a few successful designs already and even when the designs are successful, the students want to keep making improvements to make their windmills even better!
I could not be more proud of the students for all of their hard work! They are not only developing valuable skills in STEAM, but they are also becoming better communicators, team members, and leaders. Watch out, World! The next generation is really going to soar!
