My colleagues and I are currently beginning an integrated unit on weather. For each of our classes (PE, music, library, art, and STEM), our kindergarten students will be exploring a different aspect of weather. In my STEM class, we’re exploring how wind can be both a challenge and an opportunity for engineers. Our first challenge — designing wind-resistant towers — was incredibly exciting. It’s amazing how changing the context of the building task by adding in a hair dryer made my kindergarteners laugh and try again instead of crying when their creations toppled!

The Prompt: 

Click for a copy of my prompt slides for this challenge!

Grade/Skill Level Recommendation: K-2, but could adapt upwards as well!

Constraints:

• No adhesives allowed!
• May only use provided building materials

Supplies:

• Variety of building materials, ideally a mix of some that would be effective for building a strong tower and others that would not. I offered my students Magnatiles, Legos, paper cups, Keva Planks, Unifix cubes, base ten blocks, and dominoes. Next time I’d also like to include K’nex for their height potential.
• Hair dryer
• Rulers (optional)

Procedure:

Quickly introduce the challenge to students by sharing the prompt and providing a quick introduction to skyscrapers. I discussed with my kindergarten students how engineers and architects need to accomplish two things when they build skyscrapers — creating a sturdy structure than can support the massive weight of the building and developing a plan for withstanding strong winds.

Have students begin constructing their towers from the provided materials. When they have something that is ready to test, you can have students use a ruler to measure it (optional) and then blow the hair dryer on it for about 10 seconds.

If student towers topple during the wind test, encourage the builders to reflect on what they noticed and think about how they might create a stronger structure. If a student has a successful tower, ask, “Can you make it taller?”

I worked on this challenge for the entirety of my 40 minute kindergarten block, but they would have been happy to keep building beyond that time.

Teacher Tips:
Know ahead of time where your easily-accessible electrical outlets are and designate specific areas nearby where students should construct their towers. Or track down a long extension cord that can allow your hair dryer to move around your space with you.

I was the official controller of the hair dryer with my kindergarten students, but older kiddos could likely handle being in charge of the wind.

Be willing to test towers that will easily topple!

Take the time to make connections to existing buildings around the world if students create something that resembles them. Maybe your classroom will also have a young Gustave Eiffel!

As a teacher who is working with ten different grade levels, I’m a huge fan of STEM challenges that are low-prep, require everyday supplies, and are still engaging. I’ve used the following challenge with students from grades 3-6 and am always impressed with the depth of thinking that arises from such a simple task.

The Prompt: Create the longest chain possible from a single piece of construction paper.

Constraints:

• Chain must be constructed of interlocking loops
• Materials limited to single sheet of construction paper, scissors, and stapler
• 20-25 minutes to create chain

Supplies:
– 1 piece of construction paper per group (use different colors for each group)
– 1 half sheet of construction paper per group (same color for all groups is fine, but try to
make it a different color than all of the whole sheets of paper)
– 1 pair of scissors per group
– 1 stapler per group
– Extra staples in case groups run out
– Measuring tape
– Rulers

Procedure:

Quickly introduce the challenge to students by sharing the prompt and the constraints.

(Optional, but recommended) Give teams 7 minutes to work with a half sheet of paper, scissors, and a stapler to create a prototype for their chain. This is the time where I’ll often hear students engaging in some high-quality discussions. You can push these conversations deeper by encouraging them to use a measurement tool to try to prove why their theory will produce the longest chain.

After the prototyping phase, have students discard or set aside their chain experiments. Distribute full sheets of construction paper to groups and have them begin working on their final chain. (To prevent cheating, make sure the new paper is a different color than the paper groups worked with during prototyping.) Give students 20-25 minutes to work on their chains. Most groups will use this full time because of the number of strips they’ll have and the time it takes to staple.

Recommended questions to ask while you circulate around the room:
– What did you learn from your prototype that you’re applying to your final chain?
– (For early finishers) Is there anything you could do to extend the length of your chain?

When the building time is up, have teams measure their chains. I like to do this as a whole class, with teams bringing up their chains and measuring them in the front of the room. Teams come to the front, briefly share their strategy, and then measure their chains with a tape measure. We then record team data on the board. Our follow-up discussion doesn’t revolve around who made the longest chain, but rather, which techniques yielded lengthier chains.

Teacher Tips:
I have had success with having students complete this task in both pairs and trios. I prefer trios because the conversation has more voices and ideas and they can set up an assembly-line system for creating their chains.

I will often use a random team generator to create groups and get students working with different people in the room.

During the chain construction, I task teams with coming up with a team name for our measurement chart.

I’ve been looking forward to this week for over a month! It’s our final week of school before vacation and it’s all about the Grinch in STEM class. I’ve put together a variety of Grinch-related tasks for my students in grades K-4. When they arrive in class this week, students are able to move freely between tasks for the duration of class.

• Super Sleds: This challenge involves creating a sled that the Grinch can use to slide down Mt. Crumpit. This station is stocked with cardboard, rubber bands, tin foil, index cards, and paper clips.

• Balance It On Crumpit: At this station, the Grinch has a bag full of stolen goodies. Students have to make the balance level by adding a variety of weighted objects to the plastic bucket.

• Zipping Into Whoville: Using cups, pipe cleaners, string, binder clips, and rubber bands, students try to create the most effective zipline possible to help the Grinch get back into Whoville to return all of the stolen gifts.

• A Seuss-ian Creation: This station is open-ended and challenges students to use a variety of recycled materials to create a new toy or musical instrument that a Who can use to make “noise, noise, noise!”

• Lifting a Tree: At this station, students help the Grinch stuff a tree up the chimney by exploring how a simple pulley system works.

• A Whoville Christmas Tree: Using cups, students try to build the tallest tree possible. Once it’s built, they can decorate it using the pompoms.

• Grinch’s Growing Heart: On Christmas Eve, the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes. At this station, students use Legos to create three different sized hearts.

• iPad Grinch Drawing: This activity is geared towards my youngest kiddos — using a Finger Paint app on our iPads, they try to create a picture of the Grinch.

• Stealing Presents: Maybe my favorite of the activities! I got this awesome new toy — The Turing Tumble — and have turned it into a Grinch Game activity. Marbles get loaded into slots at the top left and right of the plastic board and students use different components that can get placed onto the board to try to get all of the marbles to wind up on the Grinch’s portion of the bottom of the board. (I’ll try to get a picture that better illustrates how the Turing Tumble works.)

  

I’m looking forward to four more days of the joyful noise, noise, noise that these games have created in my classroom!