STEAM Parent Day #BestDayEver

I've been coaching three multi-age teachers this year.  It is year one of a 3-5 year plan to integrate STEAM, Chromebooks, robotics et. al.  This year (as I have stated in earlier blog posts) I spend around 90 minutes in each class helping the teacher facilitate a maker activity and a Chromebook SAMR activity.  Our first trimester ends this Friday October 30th.  The pedagogical shifts that have happened in 2+ short months are incredible and will be shared in a different post.

One of the three teachers planned to have a showcase at the end of each trimester.  So, Friday October 23rd was the day we invited the parents and/or caregivers to come and experience STEAM time with their kiddos.  This was something I tried when I was a middle school math teacher after reading this Blog Post by Josh Stumpenhorst.  Chelsea sent out the invite to the parents and 28 RSVP'd.  It is AMAZING because our STEAM time is from 12:30 - 2:10 smack in the middle of the day and the parents were taking time in the middle of their day to come.

When all was said and done, 18 of Chelsea's 22 students had parents and many of those had BOTH parents.  We had one board member attend also.  This day was about the students sharing what they have done each week as well as model making for their parents.  This day was all about the students and Chelsea.  I stood back and let them all lead. It was a huge success and I was honored to be a part of it!  Here are a few pictures:

Parents working with their kiddos on the Mt. Rushmore HyperDoc

Parents work on Mt. Rushmore HyperDoc with their kiddos

Maker Supply Table and some of the catapults

We are ready to test the catapults

Here are the links to the activities:

Candy Corn Catapults

What is Your Story?

Click HERE to go to StoryCorps Great Thanksgiving Listen

I am a huge fan of NPR.  I often find myself in my car parked at a destination not able to get out because I am so entrenched in a story and I'm usually crying so I definitely can't leave until I pull myself together.  When I was in the classroom, I would use things I heard in my math classes. Most often it was a story that had interesting math tied to it.  I would also use stories that would give my students pause - an opportunity to "consider" something.  One of my favorite Morning Edition staples is StoryCorps.  Again I am usually laying in bed knowing that I will be listening with tears in my eyes.  It is my favorite way to start Friday full of empathy and thankfulness for the blessed life I lead.  StoryCorps also teaches me about resilience and bravery and that the challenges we face in life are learning experiences that make us stronger and better.

I am so excited about StoryCorps Great Thanksgiving Listen Project I've downloaded the app onto my phone and perused the questions and all the other tools to create an interview experience.  They are asking teachers to have their students add interviews.  I am thoughtfully contemplating how I will use this powerful tool with the teachers in my district to collect their stories.  Here is a link to the Morning Edition story from October 14, 2015  http://bit.ly/StorycorpsKB.

How will you use this opportunity to have your students, teachers, parents, site leaders, etc... create interviews for themselves and StoryCorps?

Cars Maker Activity

I created this activity for my STEAM teachers after attending Cuerockstar admin I wanted to follow Ramsey Musallam's plan he shared with us"

Cars Maker Activity:

PUFF MOBILE - click here for the LINK

Link to SPARK - final race Cars Movie

Supplies:

• 3 Straws
• 4 Mint life savers
• 1 piece of paper
• 2 paper clips
• Tape

CHALLENGE:

Make a car out of the above supplies and make sure it moves, by the way, you can only blow on it to make it move!

INFORMATION:

Click Here  for information on powering with “wind”

APPLICATION: Continue working on your PUFF MOBILES

On the chromebooks:

http://bit.ly/puffmobiles2 - Mrs. School’s Class

http://bit.ly/puffmobiles - Mrs. Lucas’ Class