What we've been working on (First Quarter)

Kindergarten students engineered with the alphabet this quarter!  Students rotated through centers in which they built Chicka Chicka trees and balanced letters on the popsicle stick leaves, built their names with Lego blocks, created an alphabet city and constructed alphabet gems.  They were excellent engineers!

First Grade students learned what it means to be a maker and participated in a team cup stacking challenge.  For our second week of classes, students heard the story The Crayon Man by Natascha Biebow. We learned about the invention of the modern crayon and then used Legos to engineer a crayon box of our own that would fit 8 crayons...the same number of crayons that appeared in the first colorful crayon box made by Edwin Binney! 

Second Grade students read the book The Pigeon Has to Go to School by Mo Willems.  After reading, we researched different ways to get to school and brainstormed other more exciting ways to travel.  The second graders decided that the pigeon should zip-line to school.  They designed, created and tested their own zip line contraptions and successfully got the pigeon to school on time!  For our second week of class, we created spinning ghosts and engineered our own free standing monsters!  It was a spooky good time! 

Third and fourth grade students learned about the 3 pillars of respect.  These pillars remind us to have respect for ourselves, our peers/teachers and our classroom materials and spaces.  Students made predictions and experimented with three different pillars to determine the strongest.  Each pillar had a different shaped base; triangle, square and circle. Each pillar was made from a single sheet of computer paper.  We found that the circle base was the strongest.  In some tests, the pillars held a stack of 10 books! In our second week of classes, we heard the story The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi.  In this story the main character learns an important lesson about her name and friendship.  Students then created an identity stamp using cardboard and Wikki Stix! We learned about reflection and making sure that our stamps were printing letters and numbers the correct way using playdoh.  We loved learning what makes each of us special and unique through our stamp designs! 

Fifth Grade also completed the 3 pillars challenge during our first week of STEM.  For our second week, fifth graders researched and learned about claymation.  Students worked with clay to create interesting characters and brainstormed ideas for a claymation mini-movie.  Students planned for their mini-movies by sketching a storyboard.  We will use a program called Animate It Lite the next time we meet to record our claymation mini-movies! 

Sixth Grade used teamwork to break out of several digital escape room challenges.  They did an excellent job of communicating and thinking out of the box to solve some pretty tricky puzzles.  In our second week of classes, students learned about pocket museums and began making a personal interest pocket museum of their own!  Our hope is to submit our collection of pocket museums to the Hattiesburg pocket museum in Mississippi for consideration for one of their monthly displays!  I have been blown away by the hard work of our students on these mini-museums!

Seventh  Grade learned about Rube Goldberg and the creation of Rube Goldberg machines.  We watched a music video by the band OK Go and identified the simple machines that were used, as well as the triggers throughout the machine that begin the next reaction.  We used tutorial videos from Doodlechaos to learn how to set up different chain reaction triggers.  Students will be tasked to create their own unique Rube Goldberg machines the next time we meet.  We are hoping to enter one of the upcoming Rube Goldberg challenges when more information is released next month! 

Eighth graders honed their teamwork skills in challenges like the limited lego look build and by building a “Pringles Ring!”  (That’s a free standing ring of potato chips!  This challenge took research, patience and skill to complete!)  They practiced communicating with clarity and sharing responsibilities during these challenges.  In our second week of classes, the eighth graders have been working on a STEM service project.  They are learning sewing skills as they assemble St. Benedict bookmarks with Blessed medals of St. Benedict, which were gifted to the students of St. Benedict by Fr. Lou.  I am so proud of their leadership in this area of faith and service!