STEM Ice House Challenge

My second product is here!  This is my first STEM challenge that I am so excited to introduce.  STEM is integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in daily instruction.  I did this activity with my kinders last year and it was so exciting to see the learning happen naturally.  Students build an ice house that will prevent an ice cube from melting.  We complete the experiment together as a class.  Check out this blog post from last January!

Ice House STEM Challenge 2013

Now that I am beginning to make my own products on Teachers Pay Teachers, I spent my winter break creating this and I can't wait to use it with my kinders this month.  It includes a parent letter to send home, a writing page for students to write about their ice house, and a class graph to keep track of the BIG class experiment!  Check this out on Teachers Pay Teachers!

Ice House STEM Challenge 2014

I hope you like it and please let me know your thoughts and suggestions because I am learning every day.

STEM Centers October

My goal for this teaching year is to bring STEM into my classroom through monthly thematic centers focused around our science topic.  For the month of October, my class was studying the bones in the body, perfect to teach during Halloween and skeletons. STEM is beginning to become a key concept in teaching integrating S-Science, T-Technology, E-Engineering, and M-Mathematics.  Take a peek how I integrated these teaching strands for my October centers.

I invited a parent to visit my class and introduce Mr. Bones to the students to take a closer look at the "Big Names" of bones in our body.  I told my kiddos that they were learning "Big Words!"

For math, my kiddos measured bones using unifix cubes.  I found skeletons at Michaels and took them apart.  Students measured each bone and then completed this Dem Bones Measuring sheet for fun!  

This was the favorite center to visit!  Using model magic, my kiddos built their own skeleton.  Engineering at its finest!  Excited to put together our next set of STEM centers for November.  

Super Structures

I can't believe how quickly today went by!  I am one of those people that hates to loose an hour of sleep.  It's hard enough getting up early, working out, and then getting 4 boys ready for school, then myself...I love my sleep so a day like today I feel cheated.  Tomorrow morning, bright and early I will wake at 5am, yes I said 5am!  In my eyes it's really 4am!  Ugh...it drives me crazy.  My other problem is that I love to stay up late blogging and watching my favorite shows.

 Parenthood

Grey's Anatomy

So here's the problem, with 4 boys keeping me busy all day long, I LOVE my peaceful nighttimes.  It's so hard to get myself in bed because the peace and quiet is PRICELESS.  So I stay up way too late, get little sleep, and then days like today with one less hour just DRIVE ME CRAZY!

OK enough complaining...Let's talk about Super Structures.  I love teaching STEM lessons and this particular unit is on 3 dimensional figures.  If you are unfamiliar with what STEM is, it is integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics into one unit of study to prepare students for the 21st Century workplace.  STEM instruction also incorporates STEM Standards of learning which are collaboration, inquiry, logical reasoning, and creativity.  I try to do my STEM centers 3-4 times a week.  Take a look at my kiddos working on 3 dimensional figures and 2 dimensional figures.

We began our unit of study by taking a structure walk around the school.  Learning needs to be REAL so I gave my kiddos blank paper and clip boards and we went around school and studied the buildings.  What shapes do you see?  What materials were used to build this building.  This activated our schemas and open the doors to new learning.

Here my kiddos are using their creativity making pictures using pattern block construction paper shapes.  They had so much fun creating all sorts of things!

The boys are using logical reasoning to solve mathematical questions about shapes like how many triangles fit into one hexagon?  How many blocks did you use to fill one hexagon?

My kiddos love this STEM center.  Here they are using cookie sheets and magnetic pattern block shapes to make designs.  We used our IPADS to take pictures of their creations and then I laminated the pictures for the class to try to recreate the design.  So fun! 

 We used recycable materials(tons!) to make our Super Structures.  This little kiddo had leprechauns on his mind and he made a trap to catch our Lucky the Leprechaun.

 Remember to have tons of tape available because they go CRAZY with it!

The engineering piece of STEM instruction is the fascinating part.  Now my kiddos take everything they learned about 3 dimensional shapes and apply it to real life.  Here we used marshmallows and toothpicks to make 3 dimensional shapes like cubes, pyramids, and rectangular prisms.  

Simple block building is now turned into an engineering masterpiece!  We talked about buildings and bridges and what shapes you see everyday.  Then my kiddos use that knowledge to build their own building or bridge.

Another favorite was making our Shape Monsters from Smeldley's Smorgasbord of Kindergarten, Shape Monsters activity!  Awesome and my kiddos went crazy with this.  They worked on their monsters for an entire hour.  The math activity included counting and graphing.  I LOVED how my kiddos took ownership of their monsters.

Now you can't learn about buildings and not read the story The Three Little Pigs, right?  It's perfect to teach structures and the my kiddos love hearing all the different versions that are out there.  We talked about story elements and we wrote about our own house and what we would build it out of.  

We had so much fun with this unit.
How do you teach shapes?

Five for Friday Linky Party

Well, my winter break is coming to an end, and I can't tell you how excited I am about all my new followers.  I spent the entire week blogging and commenting on so many wonderful blogs.  It was so inspiring.  I wish I always had this much time to just find new blogging friends.  I learned so much this week about how amazing you all are!  Thank you for following me.  I am SLOWLY getting there.

I am linking up for the very first time with Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday linky party.  I had such an amazing week with my family I had to share.

So let's get started,

 1.  Snow day in Westminster, Colorado.  We live in California so this was a BIG deal for us.  So much fun.

2.  Playing basketball outside in the snow.  Another highlight of our trip.

3.  Car racing at Colorado's Unser Race track.  How serious do they look?

4.  Went to the MOST AMAZING breakfast place ever.  It's called SNOOZE and its unbelieveable.  I had the OMG French Toast which was mouth watering.....yum!

5.  Last but certainly not least, before I left for break my kiddos brought in for sharing one object that represented what they wanted to be when they grow up.  Here is my little scientist.  So darling.  He made my day :).

Join the Linky party by clicking Here!

So now back to reality....my kinders up to now, only went half day kindergarten(can you believe some schools still do that?).  Starting bright and early Monday morning, my kinders stay all day with me!!  It's always a BIG adjustment.  Lots of tears all over again, and some refusals to accept the reality of school all day...UGH!  

The GREAT thing about having my kinders all day is having SO MUCH MORE TIME NOW!  So many fun things happen in the afternoons.  We have science with a great science teacher, social-emotional teacher, and YES I love reading chapter books to my kiddos in the afternoons.  I think I will start with Popper's Penguins since we just finished our Arctic unit.  So fun....

Right before break we began our Super Structures STEM unit.  I am fully invested in STEM units.  I took a fantastic workshop on STEM instruction and now I am addicted.  In fact, I am working on my Super Structures unit as we speak.  It's taking me sooooo long to finish because this is my very 1st unit!  Man, I am going to do back flips when this unit is done :)!  So to give you a little highlight of what is happening in my kinderworld take a look at some pics of our STEM centers for SUPER STRUCTURES!

 PATTERN BLOCK ART

 MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING

 GEOBOARD SHAPES

 MAGNETIC PATTERN BLOCK SHAPES

ENGINEERING AT ITS FINEST!

So if you are not familar with how STEM instruction works here is a little background.  STEM instruction is integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics under one common standard.  Super Structures is a unit where my kiddos learn about shapes and 3 dimensional shapes in all subject areas.  I can't wait to share with you my first unit because it's so much fun for my kiddos!

Insulation Science Experiment

It's terrific Tuesday and we started off the week with yet another science experiment from my STEM unit.  Ok I think this experiment was the best so far.  Thank you to my wonderful colleague who shared this with me.  It was the icing on the cake!

Today we decided to test different materials to see which one was the best insulator:

Foam

Rubber

Cotton

Wool

Blubber

Materials needed are a bucket, ice, and a ziplock bag.  That's all!  

Step one:  Prediction

What material will make the best insulator?

Step two:  Experiment

Try all materials to see which material is the warmest.  My kiddos were so excited to try out the blubber glove, cotton glove, and all the materials.

Step Three:  Collect Data

We rated each material from 1 to 5.  1 being the warmest and 5 being the coldest.

Then we used our interactive whiteboard and recorded our findings with tally marks!

Step Four:  Reflection

Together as a class we reflected on our findings.  For our class we decided blubber was the warmest.  We also make personal connections by asking essential questions like what did this make you think of?  One kiddo answered, "Massachusetts, because I used to live in the cold."

So cute :)