2019 in review

I made it to December 31st!  It has been a busy year personally and professionally.

Here are few updated pictures of my family!

My kids on Christmas Day

My children and Aunt Kim

My family plus Aunt Kim

Every year a new year means a time to reflect and prepare to start new.  This is an amazing opportunity!

I do not do "New Year Resolutions", but started several years ago do a "word of the year!"
You can read about this in some of my previous posts:
2018 post
2017 post
One Word Explained

My words have been Focused, Trust, Patience, and Creativity over the past few years!

So how did "Creativity" go in 2019...overall good!  I need a visual way to remind myself of my word.  I think that I was more creative at work than at home.  I poured a lot of time and energy into the STEAM program.  Two big grants in 1 year time has meant that my focus is work.
The STEAM room underwent a transformation to meet ADA guidelines.  This has pushed me out of my comfort zone in creating lesson and meaningful educational activities.



So one of my goals was to start using an app called "One Second Everyday".  I tried three at the same time.  I think that 1 or 2 is plenty.  I tried a book a day and made it to February 11.
Personally, I made it to April and I have continued with my montage of my classroom!
The 2020 version of the app is so much easier to "catch up" with, but offers only 1 montage at a time.

Book a Day Montage

 My personal montage

1st quarter of the school year (I have another for spring 2019 as well!)

Drum roll please...

My 2020 word is ENGAGED.  I want to be more engaged with my family and students.

The definition of the word as a verb is " participate or become involved in.   "

Well - I hope that you either try the "1 Second" app  or pick a "WORD" for 2020!

Plus there is a random "Word of the Year" generator - Word of the Year.

Winter Holidays - STEAM style

Christmas Tree Tessellations:

Students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade colored small Christmas type trees.  I cut each one out and created a 'tree of trees' tessellation style.  I hung the first one for the Polar Express event.  The second will get hung up on Monday.  Students loved seeing this come together. 

I did find a video to show students about this topic this week.  I plan to just show the first few minutes.  Tessellations

Where did I get my resource?
Frugal Fun

Kindergarten is learning to make paper snowflakes.  We are recycling old dust jackets.  I will post pictures later today!

Hour of Code and Code.org
In December, I focus on computer coding.  Students love to sit around the STEAM room solving puzzles, trying to figure out how to get the character through the maze, and next week I am adding instrumental holiday music. 

It is a time for quieter in the busy world. 

Here are some holiday coding links:
Santa Tracker by Google
Grinch Coding
Snoopy Snow Brawl

Finally, last year, my holiday shopping post was a hit!
Check it out for ideas :)
Wish List 2018

To add to this - here is what you need to make a paper circuit:
Copper tape, battery 2032 (cheapest at Bed, Bath and Beyond OR amazon), and LED lights

Catching up...maybe

It has been a busy 2 months in STEAM.  Here are some of our lessons and activities:

Fire Safety - grade 1 and 2 learned to create a fire escape plan by building a house out of LEGOS.  Then they had to create a minimum of two exits for each area/room (doors or windows).  Plus students got to explore the website called "Sparky".  You can check it out at the following website - Sparky  Students took home a paper to create a family fire escape plan as well.  Fire Escape plan

Simple Machines - 3rd grade used Pebble Go to discover the six simple machines and discover common examples of each.  Then students used Flip Grid to share their knowledge in short video clips.  I do not have permission to share all of them, so I cannot post them! 
Finally, we played a simple machine sorting activity.  I am on a search for the link to this activity!

Serious research!

Creating a simple machine 

Watching FlipGrid videos

Shape fun with Kindergarten!  We have read three shape based stories including "Color Zoo", "The Perfect Square" and "The Greedy Triangle".  Students have learned how to use Pattern blocks to make various fall pictures including spiders and bats to turkeys and pumpkins.  There are many sites to find this printables.  This Reading Mama Blog




Finally, we went to tanagrams.  We use this video to create 5 different tanagrams together.  This week, I tried a tanagram center but the printables were light and the pieces do not line up well.

Perfect square creation - bridge/sun

Perfect Square - made a square pumpkin like Spookily

Pattern block - Mayflower

Pattern Block turkey

Pattern blocks - making a cat

Another attempt at pattern blocks

Tanagram center

BATS and BACK SCRATCHERS!
Students in 2nd grade learned about bats and made "fact" bats for the outside of the library using Pebble Go.  The template that we used was from Teacherific in 2nd grade - Bat.
I do not have any bat pictures. 

Then we went on to Back Scratchers in 1st and 2nd grade.  I started with a video from Sci Show Kids then we actually made them!
We used plastic forks, paper towel tubes, playdough, tape, rulers, and a pencil.  This was a huge success to thinking like an engineer!

Back Scratcher building

Team work

Amazing creations

Sharing our work

Every engineer must test it out

Creative ideas

BONE BRIDGES:
Finally, fourth grade re-visited Bone Bridges.  I tried to this opposite of computer work.  It was a design challenge for them!  The students struggled with the materials, time constraint, objective, etc...
A few came out amazing!  10 popsicle sticks, 10 straws, 30 q-tips, a plate, glue, 3 pipe cleaners, and newspaper.

Look for a few more shorter posts.  Sorry for the delay in posting!