A STEM Robotics 101 Challenge
The week before school started I managed to prepare enough to get through the first week with no problem! That was quite the relief. I did have to put in some hours late into each day and over the three-day Labor Day weekend, but I’m used to doing that. Had I been able to prepare better over the summer I might had some time to actually spend with my family though.
Here’s what I finally came up with for my 6th grade STEM classes:
- Start with Intro Prezi. (Hand out HW papers including Cispus Packet.) Tuesday
- Marshmallow Challenge. Wednesday
- Have them access laptops and set up Classcraft Accounts. Thursday
- Pear Deck – Building Classroom Community. Friday
- Cispus – Mon to Friday of Week 2!
- Learn Rezzly and begin working on quests. Monday
- Now we are ready to do some Rezzly to unlock Volcano and Star Trek! Monday
- Do the MSH Pear Deck. It will probably take two days. Monday & Tuesday
- Then begin the Obs vs Inf cube activity. Wednesday
- Complete obs vs inf as soon as possible to give them time to do some Rezzly quests to set up notebooks, start blogs, do lab safety, etc.
- Start robotics as soon as possible by the end of Sept!
So we are in the 12th week of the school year, and it just doesn’t feel like it. The first quarter ended and we are having our parent-teacher conferences already! And Thanksgiving is next week! What?! I am having a great time, the 6th graders are doing quite well and the first 11 weeks of school have been absolutely fantastic. Yay!
I didn’t do the Saving Sam team building activity with any of my classes even though I wanted to do it in all of them. I can see myself using it if I need a way to help kids work in their teams but either than that, it’s just something I have in case I need it. In other words, I most likely won’t get to it this year! LoL
Learning About Convection
Here was my 8th Grade Science plan:
- Class intro Prezi. (Hand out HW papers.) Tuesday
- Begin with Escape Room. Tuesday
- Have them set up their Classcraft Accounts. Wednesday
- Start Classcraft quests so they can set up their notebooks, take the survey, do the tech contract, etc. Thursday
- Begin the Biome Project! Thursday do the number 4 quests LATER! BIOME NOW!!
I needed to get them started on the Biome Project right away because if I didn’t then the sub would be stuck with kids starting a project they knew nothing about. That would spell certain disaster so I started them off on the project before the second week of school.
Using a Light Sensor on an Earth Model
Now, on week 12, we are reviewing what we’ve learned so far in our weather unit while juggling a Future City design project. Just like with my 6th graders, I have been enjoying working with my 8th graders. We have gotten off to a great start so the year is shaping up quite well. I also, for the first time after years of deciding against it, made the decision to do a 20% Time/Genius Hour project with my 8th graders. I introduced it on the third week and after eight class periods (eight Fridays) the project is off to a great start. I will share more about our Genius Hour on my next blog post.
My plan for 7/8 Robotics:
- Start with Intro slides. Tuesday
- Have them set up their second Classcraft Accounts. Tuesday
- Begin the Code.Org activities, I will do the aluminum boats with them Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Thursday?? Debrief Aluminum Boat and move on to next activity!
- Friday – continued from Thursday because that’s what they’ll be doing all next week. ALL WEEK!!
This one was tough. Had I not been gone the second week of school we could have gotten started with the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits right away. We had a fun challenge when all but one of the nine teams was done with their intro activities called the Color Activated Robo-Dragster from the STEM Robotics 101 curriculum.
A Robo-Dragster Race!
Now we are doing a challenge that I created that I used at a robotics summer camp I put together that is less design and build and more dependent on programming where robots have to traverse a maze through the classroom. This class has been so much fun for me and even though not all the kids are engaged all the time, which is shocking to me, I think it’s still going well. This class is a semester-long class so we’ll see if the kids can hold out for another eight to nine weeks.
This year has been getting off to a great start and is still going so well that I am having a great time overall with all my classes! And I am so grateful. 🙂
