St. Patrick's Day and Offline STEAM fun

 Last week, I saw 4 out of my 5 groups.  Monday March 22nd, I finally saw the 5th group.  We were doing some offline learning fun before going back to Code.org lessons this week.  One group saw me on Monday and Wednesday (March 15 and 17) because of the "Snow Make Up" schedule.  So on Wednesday March 17th, Kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade worked on a St. Patrick's day choice board.  First they created a piece of art then got to explore videos, games, and history.  Here is link to the choice board created by another librarian with permission. St. Patrick's Day Choice Board.  My Kindergarteners all did the same Pot of Gold art video on Wednesday instead of complete free choice.

Here are some of the other offline activities from last week in school:

2nd grade was working on Binary, Bits, and Bytes.  They deciphered a binary or secret message and made a binary bracelet.  This was part of the Code.Org program.  Ms. Ewanick's class will be doing that next week.  I was having a Monday morning and skipped right to this week's lesson in Code.org.  
Here are some of the videos that we watched as part of the lesson:

1st grade and Mrs. Kotlar's Room worked on a robot activity and penny experiment.  The balancing robot was printed on card stock.  Students colored and cut them out before they learned the secret trick!  The trick is weights or coins on the back on the arms.  While they were working, we investigated on how to clean a penny - water vs. ketchup.  They made a hypothesis and watched it under the ELMO document camera.  
Here is a fun science explanation:

Balancing Robot link - Robot printable and explanation

Kindergarten worked on online safety using Common Sense Media curriculum.  We discussed three big rules - 1. Ask permission  2.  Only talk to people you know    3. Go to just right websites

They created a picture to share what they learned.  Overall, the students seemed to understand these concepts.  Planting seeds to watch them grow.  Keeping students safe!  

Then they could explore the San Diego Zoo.  The videos section worked best.  The game is not touch sensitive and the other tabs involved lots of reading.  If you keep scrolling past the animal cams then you get many fun animal based videos.  San Diego Zoo Videos

3rd and 4th grade are working on Power Points and wrapping up the projects.  They were supposed to be done before Easter/spring break for most of the students, but remote learning interrupted us.   Permission slips for submitting to the Invent It challenge are going to start after Spring/Easter break.  This is a totally optional part of the project!