STEM & Blossom: December

The iLab is hustling and bustling with projects galore! From ceramics and 3D printing to constellation studies to coding, green screens and robotics, we have a wide variety of things a'happenin' in STEM! It has been a true delight welcoming your children back after Thanksgiving; I LOVE our December projects!

Ask your child what their working on in STEM or when they have their STEM week! Other questions I'd encourage you to ask are: What does it mean to collaborate? How do you know you've done your best in STEM? What are the challenges and rewards when working with a group? How do we use coding in our everyday lives? How does it feel to create something unique?

I wish you all a Delightful December filled with all the things that bring you JOY!

Best,

Nickie Doran

• K: Coding & Bot Stations Kinders will explore robotics and coding for their first time! Students will start at one station that focuses on a specific robot or coding skill and rotate to each station throughout the week! They will explore Dash robots, Code and Go Colby Mouse, Scratch Jr. and Cubettos! We spend this week exploring technology, discussing what coding is and how we use it in our everyday lives! They will end the week snapping a picture of their favorite robot/coding station on Seesaw!

• 1st: Colby and Scratch Jr.! First Graders will start the week exploring Colby Mouse, its functions, and will create their own challenge for Colby to complete. For the rest of our week, we will introduce Scratch Jr., an age-appropriate coding app that helps students create algorithms and code stories, games and more! We will read various tales of "Tacky the Penguin" and students will retell one of Tacky's stories through coding in Scratch Jr.! We will end our week sharing a screenshot of our favorite story scene on Seesaw.
• 2nd: 3D Printing and Clay Sculptures 2nd graders will explore Tinkercad, our 3D printing software, for our first time and will create their own unique animal stamp! We will then use our customized stamps to create BEAUTIFUL hanging clay sculptures! Students will be introduced to the clay process and will bisque and glaze their own projects! While our clay sculptures fire, we will create story plans and build books focusing on the animal that we chose. Students will have a beautiful 3D printed stamp, their fabulous books AND a hanging clay sculpture to end their STEM week!
• 3rd: Climate Stories on Scratch We're riding the Scratch wave into the sunset! Students will continue to build on their Scratch and coding skills, while simultaneously learning about global climates! We start our week exploring the difference between WEATHER and CLIMATE and will use Unifix cubes to graph various climates around the world. Students will then work in teams to create and code TWO climate stories on Scratch, then use our Makey Makeys to create interactive Climate Posters!
• 4th: Video Mania Round II 4th graders will begin their 2nd rotation of our Video Mania unit and will explore their 2nd station! Each STEM week, classes will be split into 3 different sections that focus on a specific tech/media for them to explore. Students will spend their week in STEM exploring Greenscreens and DoInk (app), Stop Motion or Wick (animations)! Each station will have a specific focus for their movies, whether it be touring a famous location (Greenscreen), animating a scientific process (Wick Animation) or Retelling a famous myth or legend (Stop Motion). It is so much fun to watch teams plan, film, execute and edit their movies! I can't wait to start this next round!
• 5th: Seasonal Constellations 5th graders begin their week exploring a website called Stellarium which allows students to see the constellations from all over the world at any date, season or time! We explore various constellations and study their movement throughout the seasons. Teams will then choose a constellation and create a project that shows either: 1. How the constellation moves through the sky or 2. The brightness and variation of stars within the constellation. Teams have a variety of project options this week, ranging from creating a Stop Motion Movie to utilizing SAM Labs technology to building your constellation with Makers Materials! This project is always so diverse and each project unique -- I can't wait to see what this group of 5ths create!

A very exciting opportunity is quickly approaching! I (Mrs. Doran) applied for a program called Architects in Schools and was accepted! All 5th graders will experience this in-house architect residency project in STEM January 23rd-February 10th!

In the AiS program, all students learn:

• That design is all around us and we make decisions every day that affect our environment.
• How the subjects they study in school apply to the real world outside of school.
• That design of the built environment affects and is affected by human behavior.
• That there are many people who create the spaces in which we live, learn, work and play, and some examples of their jobs (i.e. architects, landscape architects, structural and civil engineers, contractors, urban planners, etc.).
• Skills that help them work better in groups, communicate their ideas, and understand that designing and building spaces is a process as well as a product.

The AiS program is not trying to create “mini design professionals.” Although, some students realize through their participation in AiS that they’d like to grow up to design and build spaces, all students participating learn important skills through lessons that include cooperation and planning, connect to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards and help to gain a better sense of how school relates to the “real world.”

With the help of local professionals, our 5th graders "home" projects will take 2-3 weeks to complete. We can't wait to dive into this experience and I am so excited to share all the things with you!

There is only 1 thing needed from you -- Please complete the image release forms for AiS as soon as possible! Thank you for your help in making Hallinan such a special place to learn!

Email: dorann@loswego.k12.or.us
Website: https://www.instagram.com/stem_and_blossom/
Location: Hallinan Elementary School, Hawthorne Drive, Lake Oswego, OR, USA
Phone: (503) 534-2353
Twitter: @nickie_doran