I love trying to incorporate STEM activities or any type of hands on learning in my lessons. Bonus if it is a simple activity that doesn't take too much much additional planning, work, or extra supplies.
This week was a long week at school! We had two late nights of parent teacher conferences, the 50th day of school, followed by grandparents day, all on the final week before Fall Break! Although I was exhausted I still wanted to make it a fun week for my kindergarteners!
So now to the simple yet engaging STEM activity! We read the story 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate to help set the stage for the challenge. One of the things that I have learned when doing STEM activities is that they don't have to be extreme they can be simple...the most important thing is that the kids are engaged, using critical and creative thinking skills, and exploring.
I then told the students that they had a challenge that they needed to complete. They had to come up with a plan to create a gate for the pumpkins. I used items from my classroom. The only thing that had to be purchased were the pumpkin candies.
I put the students in groups and had them discuss a plan with each other. Once they had a plan in mind I gave them blank piece of paper and had them draw out their plan. Once their plan was drawn they could get their supplies and begin building their gates.
This is the first STEM activity that I have done with this kindergarten class this year and I was truly impressed! They loved it. All you could hear in my classroom were truly engaged students sharing ideas with each other, testing out plans, and recreating gates, until they built one that worked. A few of my students decided to try a few different plans to see if they could make multiple types of gates. I loved the seeing the different ideas and how their little engineer minds worked. I was impressed with the different creations. Here are some pictures from this STEM activity.
The Planning
The Creating
The Finished Product
The one thing to always remember when planning STEM activities, you can use items you already have. Let the your students take the lead, let their minds be creative and lead the way. You will be amazed with what they come up with. When explaining this challenge I didn't give a lot of direction... I just let their creativity take the lead!
