Piney Point STEM lab 17-18 week 1

It was a fantastic, albeit late, start to the school year! The STEM lab played host to:

Ms. Sato’s Pre-K

Ms. DiPersio’s 1^st grade

Mr. Arzola’s 2^nd grade

Ms. Hatchell’s 3^rd grade

Ms. Giron’s 4^th grade

Ms. Mulry’s 5^th grade

STEMlab wk1 from Kimberly Boyce-Quentin on Vimeo.

We held grade level assemblies first day to share the exciting news about our status as an Arts Access Initiative Creative Focus School, introduce our many new Eco-School’s initiatives, and kick-off Marathon Kids.

Our first programming unit is based on the new courses designed by Code.org. These feature old favorite characters such as the Angry Birds and introduce popular puzzles with Rey and BB-8 from Star Wars in leveled sections tailored specifically to pose appropriate challenges for each grade. 1^st through 5^th grade really enjoyed the new activities and I was thrilled with the problem solving collaboration taking place with every group!

We turned from STEM to STEAM with the addition of an art project for everyone! Our focus story for this cycle is the charming What Do You Do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamada. 1^st and 2^nd grade designed their own robot assistant with an eye to passing on certain tasks – most commonly doing homework! Other popular options were robots that cleaned bedrooms, made and served snacks, and played games. 3^rd – 5^th grade created Idea Portraits. This idea came from a lesson designed by Beverly Blackmon. Students created a self-portrait and then illustrated their ideas as pouring out of their heads. They did an amazing job as you can see from the gallery in the video!

3^rd-5^th closed out the week with a BreakOUT. These are like an escape room in a box – teams work together to solve a series of challenges. Each solution provides the combination of a different lock. If every group solves their puzzle they can open the box and get their celebration cards. All three grades solved problems based on the quipu – an ancient Incan tool for recording and collecting data. All three classes beat the clock and a complex series of mathematical and reading challenges to open the box!

This is the first year that Pre-K has come to the STEM lab! Their first unit is exploring their campus Eco-Schools role – Sunflower Stars! They learned about the life cycle of a plant with Peep and also Annie and Moby from BrainPOP Jr., then acted out the process, made paper plate sunflowers, and planted their own sunflowers from seeds harvested by last year’s kinder scholars from our own sunflower garden! They will water them and observe them daily to check for growth!