Sunday, September 16, 2018

Technology, art, and engineering

The 2018 - 2019 school year is off to amazing start!

My personal professional goals are to incorporate more ART and MATH in STEAM.  The past two years have been heavy on the Science, Technology, and Engineering.

So here is what we have done to meet this "goal":
Week 1 - we created snowflake gears.
Week 2/3 - we created a rubix cube mosaic flowers

So how did the students created a rubix cube mosaic?  First I rented the cubes for FREE (just pay shipping back) through You Can Do the Cube.  You Can Do the Cube website

First, I printed off two flower templates from the "You Can Do the Cube" website.  I laminated one set and as the "board" and the second set was cut into squares.  I left out whole cubes for the first one.  I had 23 cubes to solve.  Each student had a cube, a note card with the pattern needed for the mosaic, and on the back the corresponding number to the mosaic.  As they solved a cube, they walked out to the computer floor and added their cube to the mosaic.  When all 23 cubes were complete, I slid the four sections together to create the final mosaic!

Over all, it went well.  I had a few classes that had several broken rubix cubes.  In addition, students lacked GRIT.  If they could not get it immediately, they would either verbally complain, hand it off to a successful peer, or simple abandon their cube.  All of my classes completed at least 20 out of 23 cubes to create the mosaic.

If I were to do it again, I would have a few extra cubes on hand.  I would also possible try to selective hand harder combinations to certain students.

The students were amazed at what they created.

After they were done with mosaics, they hand free-choice engineering.  The new LEGO wall is a HUGE hit as well as KEVA planks.  I added a KEVA PLANKS challenge as well to the choices.

Here are a few mosaic pictures and free choice engineering pictures!

Adding a piece to part of the mosaic


Completed mosaics


LEGO WALL


FREE CHOICE ENGINEERING CREATIONS








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