Wednesday, December 11, 2024

November/December 2024

 


Kindergarteners designed and built painting tools that would paint thick lines, thin lines and dots. They worked through the engineering design process and worked with a partner to plan, create, and test their design!



Finished Products


Testing out the painting tools






Building the painting tools



5th graders have finished building and modifying their robot designs. They have been working on improving their driving skills through various challenges in order to prepare for the upcoming class robotics competition.






Two robots work together on the field to score the most points. 




4th graders were given the challenge to build a balloon-powered or rubber-band powered car in a group of 2 or 3 people. They were true engineers, building, trying it out and it not working, and then re-designing and re-building it until the car moved even a little!














3rd graders have been learning about forces and simple machines. They used this knowledge to build a compound machine rescue device to rescue a tiger out of the moat at the zoo. 



Exploring magnets


2nd graders were given the task of building a fast but safe sled for a plastic toy. They worked in a small group and chose materials and designed and built a sled that would keep the toy safe, but still go down the "hill" fast! 





the sledding "hill" 




1st graders have been working on re-telling and writing stories with a beginning, middle and end. After they write their story with a partner, they animate their story in the computer programming app for iPads, Scratch, Jr. 






Monday, October 28, 2024

October 2024

 Students are in the routine of school and are working in groups and partners well! That is a big part of PLTW no matter the grade level. Collaboration and communication are both 21st century skills and we work on them often in class!


Young fives build with new bristle blocks thanks to the generosity of the Bryant/Pattengill PTO!


Young fives are learning about living and non living things and we did some leaf rubbings one day. They turned out great!

Structure and function are a big part of our engineering curriculum and we learned how our skeleton has an important job!


Fun with wikki stix!



...and magnatiles!



Playdough centers tie into our kindergarten engineering unit

1st graders work together in small groups to play an "offline" coding game where they learn how to program a robotic dog! 


Many 5th grade groups are finished with building their robots and are practicing their driving skills and moving blocks with them. This prepares them for a big class competition where students work with other robots to score the most team points in a fun robotics challenge!

building the robot