The Light Lab was full of a wide variety of students and teachers in December, making the weeks before the winter break just fly. In my 13 years of teaching, I have always felt that I'm running a race from September to the end of the calendar year. From Back-to-School events to Halloween to Thanksgiving to the various End-of-the-Year Holidays, I crave the winter break to regroup.
I look forward to January when I can return to students who are already settled into their classes with a quiet month fairly void of distractions from teaching. It's really the heart of the school year. I always feel like so much gets accomplished in this long month. This year won't be an exception!
Our young ones are in the Light Lab in full force this month with both Pre-Kindergarten classes taking on exciting projects. Pre-K B continues to make progress on their wearable cars.
They added spinning wheels to the car base today with great success. We're going to problem solve a little together to make the wheels more stable when they are sitting on the floor. The brads allow great spinning but are hard to secure without impeding their movement.
Our second task taught us about electricity and how to build a simple Little Bits circuit as a car horn. They did an amazing job with this part! Not a single student wasn't completely engaged and delighted by their working horn.
They added spinning wheels to the car base today with great success. We're going to problem solve a little together to make the wheels more stable when they are sitting on the floor. The brads allow great spinning but are hard to secure without impeding their movement.
Our second task taught us about electricity and how to build a simple Little Bits circuit as a car horn. They did an amazing job with this part! Not a single student wasn't completely engaged and delighted by their working horn.
They couldn't wait to start thinking about where to place the horn inside their car. We'll work on installing the circuit onto the car wheel with velcro next week. Our Little Bits circuits were conveniently secured with little velcro feet so we can easily do this next step.
Pre-K A begins to build rockets this week as they continue studying space. Each student made the body, cone, and fins of their rocket. They will add flaming cellophane and lights next week. I'll post pictures soon.
KB has been learning about the layers of the Rainforest. Kindergarteners used the Fabrication Studio today to start their interactive rainforest board. They are working on creatively making the background illustrating the four layers with trees, clouds, leaves, vines, greenery, flowers and a river. They joyfully used a wide variety of materials from twine to cellophane and fabric to pipecleaners to create their individual contributions to the community board.
As we work through the next weeks, each student will research and create a rainforest animal to add to the board. Each animal will have a foil touch button that will activate a custom sound recording in the student's voice teaching the viewer about their animal. Fifth grade book buddies will be working on writing the codes in Scratch and helping to record their buddy's fun facts. They will also help us wire everything together using the Makey Makey Inventor's Kit.
Stay tuned for more.
