Today we learned about tensegrity and how the concepts of push/pull work to create stability in structures. Students built a tensegrity structure and (hopefully brought it home).
This week, I introduced our final project for the year--a Hobbit Hole! We'll be making a geodesic dome that has geometric principles involved.
Today we started our petri dish observations by dissecting petri dishes into sections and swabbing various locations and body parts and then putting those in the petri dish segments. We'll observe these for growth.
Today we had open STEAM for anyone who had already finished their radial design. Next week, we will begin studying bacteria as we learn about Terrible Typhoid Mary.
Some of our group have finished their radial fireworks design, so those are on display in the hallway of the building. We will have open STEAM for those who have finished and give an opportunity for everyone else to finish up for one more week. We will begin our study of diseases, contagion, and bacteria on 2/17 when the ELA class begins reading Terrible Typhoid Mary.
Today we started working on one of my most favorite designs! We started our 3 dimensional radial design project. We discussed symmetry and even sorted some symmetrical shapes. The we used some orgami folds to start our beautiful designs! They will be stunning once they are complete.
Today we worked on putting cams on our automaton. We have been learning so much during this process! We will attempt to finish these up next week, but we will also be watching A Christmas Carol during this time.
Today in STEAM we began designing and creating our automata for A Christmas Carol. We will work on actual assembly next week.
Hope you all have wonderful Thanksgiving---I am so thankful for you!
On 12/9 we will have pajama day and we will watch the animated version of A Christmas Carol!
Today we finished up our study of electrons and determined that the metals in our compounds made the flames turn different colors. We also did a lot of periodic table hunting! Once we finished that, some students worked on skeletons while others had open STEAM. Next week, we'll begin our Christmas project which will be an automata.
Today we had a very fun time with chemistry! We had several chemical compounds in the chloride family and added heat energy to the compounds in the form of fire. We discussed how electrons move from their grounded state to their excited state and release energy in the form of electromagnetism (visible light spectrum). We were able to discuss the periodic table, elements, metals, nonmetals, and metalloids, electrons, atoms, and chemical compounds. We also discussed how to write the chemical compounds. This was a great lab! We will continue next week in our understanding of how the electrons move. Then we will begin our Christmas project to accompany A Christmas Carol.
Today was the final day of the skeleton quiz! Charlie was our winner with the highest score. We also worked on our skeletons. Almost everyone is done with that. Next week, we will be working on a very cool chemistry experiement that involves color, since Jonas is able to see color and no one else in the community is able to see color.
Today we took a bones quiz (again). Scores did improve some from the first week, so that is good! We will take the final quiz on 10/28. There person who has the most correct will win a prize! We also continued to work on our grid skeleton drawings. These are something we will return to for the next few weeks as we begin our Giver work.
You can practice the bones quiz here: https://www.purposegames.com/game/label-the-skeleton-game
Today we worked on the A part of STEAM--Art!! We're working on a project that will probably take us a few weeks. It is a very cool neon skeleton and it has been very challenging for a lot of students! We have created a grid and then students must copy each grid line. Whew! This was difficult. Everyone wanted to rush through it and you simply cannot do that with grid drawings. To make it a bit more "science-y," we took a anatomy quiz to name all the human bones. I will quiz everyone next week and have a prize for the person who gets the most correct!
Today we did a genius hour of sorts. I had originally planned on us taking at least 3-4 weeks to completing our bots, but this group was amazing and completed them in about 1.5! I'm trying to keep them challenged! One group worked on writing code for a scene using the computer program Scratch and another group worked on actually building other types of bots. When we return from break, we will finish these up and possibly work on some Halloween/October type projects.
Today we had several stations going at once! Some students worked on learning how to code using the program called Scratch. Others worked on a bit more engineering and built more robotics items (motorcycles, ball launchers, and other vehicles). We'll work on this again next week and then we'll start our new unit about The Giver. I've got some really exciting things planned---We'll be working with chemistry and dna/genetics.
Today in class, we learned a bit more about different types of jobs robots have all over the world (some of them were terrifying---that dinosaur robot, right?). We have also fully constructed our walking robots, so we had them race! It was a lot of fun. We even raced them backwards. Next week, we will work on coding and learning about how to code.
Today, we completed a circle map to access our background knowledge of robots. Then we started building a walking robot! Students did great with this! It was a lot of fun and everyone worked hard and was careful about their work. Then we read a short little passage to determine what a robot is and what robot is not. Students had to complete an exit slip before reading.
Today we continued to get to know one another! We also worked on the M portion of STEAM. We completed a graphing activity where students had to plot points on a four quadrant graphing page (negative and positive x and y axis). Then they had to connect all the dots as they went and make it into an art representation. Students only graphed phrases that applied to them, so everyone's looked different! Most students knew how to graph in one quadrant, but graphing in all four proved to be a challenge for most!
Today we learned about the elements of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) and then we completed a notecard STEM CHALLENGE. The true purpose of this challenge was to get the students to work together in a group and to communicate ideas with one another. We'll have another STEAM challenge next week and then after Labor Day, we will begin our robotics unit.
We were also able to have a bit of open STEAM time, which is what I really love for this class. It's basically a time for them to work on challenges together (that they choose), but still be social (it is middle school after all). I was very proud of the intensity of the competitions!