Gingerbread Boy/Girl Problem | STEM activity

Every year during the holiday time, my class does a Gingerbread Unit, where we read all the different gingerbread stories. We have a story matrix that helps us keep track of the characters, plot, and repeated phrases. Students get to discuss with their partners and class how each story is similar and different to each other. At the end, the students write an opinion piece about which gingerbread story was their favorite story. This year we incorporate this fun STEM activity for students to do in their "engineering team." 

In my class, students are already sitting in groups so creating their "engineering team" was easy. Before starting we talked about Engineers, the Engineering Design Process and what it means to work in a team. Each group member had an assigned job (recorder, materials manager, problem solver, and facilitator). 

Group #1 Boat

Engineering Design Process

1. Ask (What is the problem?): How can the Gingerbread Boy/Girl get across the river without having to go on the fox?

Group #2 Boat

2. Image (Brainstorm ideas): As a class, we discussed ideas and picked the best one. My students agreed that a boat would have worked.

Group #3 Boat

3. Plan (draw a diagram and gather materials): Before starting this part of the process, I introduced the materials to my students. 

Materials:

sheets of foil

feathers

pom poms

tape (length of my arm)

bubble wrap

dixie cups

pipe cleaners

string

popsicle sticks

You are not limited to these materials. These were just items I had around my classroom. 

3. Plan: After introducing the materials to the students, the groups started to draw out their diagram.

Group #4 Boat

4. Create (follow the plan & test it): Students then had time to create their boat and test it out.

Group #5 Boat

 5. Improve (discuss what worked, what didn't work, and ways to improve): This stage happened for some groups during their creating stage. As each group was building their design, I was walking around to each group and talking with them about their design. During our discussions, some groups noticed that they need to change their design a little. For example, they noticed that the foil when kept flat might get water on top, so they decided to fold up the sides.

After each group tested out their design, we had a class discussion about what went well and what didn't. We also discussed about items that were their for structure and function and the items that were just more of an appearance piece to make the boat look good.

Group #6 Boat

All of my students' boats successfully carried the Gingerbread Boy/Girl across the river. 

My students really enjoyed this STEM activity! It was wonderful to see them working together to create their boats.

I have so many ideas for next year to improve this activity. I created this worksheet for next year so my students have a organized place to record their diagram instead of the blank piece of paper I gave them this year. 

Click the picture below to download the worksheet

Lots of Love,

Katie

Snowmen Decor | Student Gifts to Parents

It's the New Year and I'm finally updating the blog. As you can already guess my New Year's Resolution for 2015 will definitely be keeping this blog updated with the latest and gratest ideas that are happening in my classroom. 

How cute are these snowmen home decor?!?!?! My students created these super adorable snowmen for their gift to their parents. It's the perfect gift to give during the holiday season because it doesn't require a Christmas tree. Any parent can decorate their house with this cute home decor piece that their child made for them!

Materials:

2x4 cut wood blocks 

(local home improvement store can cut it for you)

Black Sharpie

Pom Pom

Pink & White paint

Scissors

Orange construction paper

Glue

*Hot Glue Gun

Ribbon

fuzzy sock

*Please be careful when using this tool it can burn you

Prepping the project for students: make sure that you cut enough wood blocks for each student. I always make extras just in case. You can either have your students paint the blocks white and let them dry for a day or you can paint them before. Hot glue the ribbon around the base of each block.

Students work: using the black Sharpie, students will draw the face of the snowmen (minus the nose). Using scissors, students will cut out a nose and glue it on with regular school glue. Using the pom pom & paint, students will paint on the rosy cheeks of the snowmen. To top off the snowmen, students will take the fuzzy sock, roll it up a little, and place over the top of the wood block to create the hat. 

Lots of Love,

Katie

I Spy | Storybook Parade Costume | DIY

I work at an AMAZING school, where the love of reading is definitely celebrated! Every year we have a Storybook Parade where students dress up as storybook characters! I love seeing all the wonderful creative costumes our students and their families come up with. This year, there was a student dressed as The Giving Tree, several animals (Yay for the Non Fiction books), and my favorite, lots of Dr. Seuss characters. Last year, I dressed up as Minerva Louise and wore a hen hat on my head. This year's costume was so much fun to put together!!! I went looking through my craft supplies and made a trip to my local dollar store to find all the items. After assessing what items I had, I created this cute poem to go with the items to find. To make sure I could reuse this shirt, I velcroed the bigger items and the paper items. Everything else, I hot glued on. Not pictured is a hat I wore with items stuck to it. 

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Lots of Love,

Katie

My Pumpkin's Teeth | Freebie Printable

How cute are these pumpkins on Pinterest!

Left photo source unknown        Right photo source: First Grade Blue Skies

My classroom art docent and I were brainstorming ideas for an art project for October and saw these super adorable pumpkins. After deciding on this project, I thought how can we add some math to it and came up with the Pumpkin's Teeth Math Problem. My students created a math word problem to go with how many teeth their pumpkin had. They really enjoyed this project! Here are two examples!

Click the image below to get the free printable.

Lots of Love,

Katie

Ideas for Your Classroom Door

I love door decorations...more like obsessed with door decorations!!! I can spend hours on Pinterest looking at different teacher's door decorations. These were just some of the door decorations I did last year. I'll be posting my most recent doors decorations soon, so keep an eye out for them! Wow, I said door decorations a lot in this post lol. 

Lots of Love,

Katie 

Nouns & Verbs Activity {Creating Sentences}

For the past couple weeks, we have been focusing on nouns and verbs. We started off with learning about nouns and then moved onto verbs. This activity brought both nouns and verbs together in a fun way! My students had a blast during this activity and loved meeting with their peers. There are 16 noun cards and 16 verb cards. The cards have various words for different reading levels. You give half your class noun cards and half your class verb cards. If you have a class like I do of 25, I gave my 13 group the noun cards and the 12 group, verb cards. I had my students interact using the Kagan Structure: Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up! Students with the noun cards were the ones to stand up and the students with the verb cards were the ones to put up their hand. Students got to find a new partner and create a sentence using their noun and verb card. They recorded their sentence on the worksheet provided.

After this lesson, I thought this could make a great centers activity as well. Students can draw from a noun card stack and a verb card stack. Then, they would make a sentence using the noun and verb and record it on the worksheet. 

The best part about this activity is that it's FREE to you! Click the picture below to download!

Lots of Love,

Katie

Writing Wall

I absolutely love how my writing wall came out this year. Remember those chalkboard clips I was making in my previous posts, don't they look so cute up on the wall. The banner was from the party section at Target and the lettering is your usual bulletin board lettering you can order at any school supply store. There is going to be a lot more writing this year!

Lots of love,

Katie