Parachute STEM Challenge and $25 TpT Gift Card Giveaway

STEM activities are a great way to keep students engaged and focused on learning activities even when they think they don't want to learn.  When I participated in the Summer Countdown Blog Hop I bumped into this great post by One Room School House and I KNEW we had to try this one out.



Our current read aloud is Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk, so it couldn't have come at a more perfect time!

Meet our version of Jack:

I provided students with a variety of items to choose from including: shopping bags, paper napkins,  and gallon sized baggies.  Each team was allowed to choose 2 items from the table and 1 piece of yarn.

Students worked in teams of three.  I gave them 5 minutes to discuss and develop a plan.  Then I let them "shop" for their supplies.  To make it easier, and less chaotic, each team delegated one member to grab their supplies.

Once all of the teams had their supplies, I gave them 15 minutes to construct their parachutes.

Some of the groups even decided to test out their parachutes with some trial runs.

Then came the fun part!  We took our parachutes to the slide on the playground to launch them.  I gave each team 3 drops to allow everyone to have a chance to test out their design.  As each student dropped their parachute, we timed it to see how long it took for the parachute to hit the ground.

When we came back to the classroom, we put the data to work with a quick little math lesson on averages.  So much fun and a great way to front-load some content for next year!


This Giveaway is over!  Visit our Giveaways page for our current giveaway!

Speaking of fun, wouldn't it be fun to win a $25 Teachers Pay Teachers gift card to have a little spending spree?

I will be having weekly $25 TpT gift card giveaways thanks to some of my awesome blogging friends!  You can enter to win this week's giveaway by completing the Rafflecoptor below:

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Prize: $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

Co-hosts: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher), A Plus Kids, The Chocolate Teacher, Kamp Kindergarten, Lattes and Lunchrooms, and Little Smarticle Particles

Giveaway organized by:  An Apple for the Teacher

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter form to enter daily. Giveaway ends 5/28/16 and is open worldwide. Winner will be notified via email.

Sorry you missed this giveaway, but you have another chance!  Our current giveaway is here.

Are you a TpT seller or teacher blogger who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your blog? Click here to find out how you can join a totally awesome group of bloggers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Learning About Windmills - STEM fun!

One of my fellow teachers and I have been taking a STEM class to help us integrate STEM into our curriculum.  As part of our class, we have been very lucky to receive a variety of resources, but our favorite so far has been a KidWind kit!

With the kit, our students have been able to design their own windmills with the following purposes:

1. A design that will lift the most weight.
2. A design that will create enough power (electricity) to turn on a small light bulb.

We started our lesson by allowing the students to play with the kits, designing windmills as they built them.

As they watched each team try out their designs, they made lots of observations and developed several theories.

Once they tested a few out, it was time to plan some re-design based on the observations they had made the day before.

I loved how some of the students used tools we had used in previous lessons (rulers and using centimeters) as they wrote out their plans.

Some used prior knowledge.

Here is a video of some of our students lifting washers with their windmill:


Our winning engineers who lifted the most weight.  They were so proud!

Here are some students creating electricity with their windmills.

You can order these kits here (you could also use it as a Donors Choose project!).  Or you could try to make a similar kit to the one shown below.  Our instructors from the STEM class ran our school's science night and brought these versions with them. They used wood dowels, closet rod, PVC pipe, swimming “noodles” cut 3 inches wide, a washer, and hot glue to make them.  

They poked barbecue skewers into the pool noodle and taped paper plates to them to make their windmill panels.

Have you integrated STEM into your classroom?  I'd love to hear what you've done!  If you have a blog post about it, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.

STEM At the Beach

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about our day trip to the beautiful Donner Lake.

What I didn't mention was the impromptu STEM lesson that happened while we were there.  I guess you can't really turn the teaching brain off even when you are relaxing!

While we were there, a group of boys started digging something.  Then they would grab a bucket of water and run down the line with it splashing it out as they went.  My boys curiosity was peaked!

"What are they doing?"

"What are they making?'

Finally one of them figured it out.  

"They are trying to make a river or stream to the lake."

Then they become doubtful.

"It's not going to work the way they are doing it."

That's when teacher mom arrived on the scene.

"What would you do differently to make it work better?"

"What structural changes would you suggest they make."

The ideas poured out like crazy!

"Maybe they need to make it higher than the lake."

"Maybe they should pour the water in one spot at a time so it has less time to evaporate."

Then I suggested, "Why don't you help them engineer it?"

That has a much better ring to it than "Why don't you go ask them if you can play?"

Have you and your kids been learning this summer?