My kids have gone crazy for crayfish!  We needed to learn about Animal Adaptations, so we decided to study crayfish.  We ordered a variety of live crayfish from Carolina Biological and set up tanks for each table.  Did you know crayfish breathe in using spiracles on the sides of their body?

We did a few live crayfish labs.  The kids got to "meet" their table's crayfish by making some observations.  We also saw how the crayfish reacted to bubbles, different colors, covered and uncovered tanks, and how they breathe.  All of these labs can be found in a low price pack here.

We also researched crayfish and created report posters about them.

The kids created their own layout and used diagrams, pictures and headings to organize the report and make it informative and eye-catching!  Each one is unique!

We also used this great crayfish flip flap book!  You can grab one from Simply Skilled in Second for under $5!  The kids had a BLAST creating the flip flap book and they looked great displayed in the hallway.  

At the end of our crayfish study, we dissected preserved crayfish I got from BioCorp (NOT the live ones we have in our classroom).  If you are interested in dissecting them, you can click here for the link to the lab pack.  Crayfish a really great little creatures to keep in the classroom and we hope ours stick around for awhile!

Have I got your attention?  This is a giant gummy worm.  You can get one on Amazon by clicking here.  I love to be able to grab my kids' attention in class and this was a great way to do it!  All you need is some regular gummy worms and one giant gummy worm.

You can buy my lab pack for this activity by clicking here.

Here are some pictures of the lab!

 

 

The kids did a TON of math and were totally engaged with this one!   I have another variation of this lab using gummy bears.

I am always looking for ways to get my students to write within the content areas.  We decided to make our own aliens during our study of the solar system.  Students had to sew (yes, I said sew) their own alien creation.  We made these during our weeks of testing and they were a welcome relief after 2 hours of tests each day.  I brought in an assortment of felt and craft supplies for this project and then just let the kids have at it!

Here are just a few of our creations.  I am so impressed by their creativity!  Once the aliens were created, students made poster reports about their alien.  

In our building. STEM has been moving towards STEAM for about a year now.  The A in STEAM is for Art and our kids love any opportunity to be creative and artistic.

Who doesn't LOVE Star Wars?  It has always been one of my favorite movie collections since I was a little kid.  I have a pack of Star Wars STEM Challenges that I have used in the past, but this year we have so much going on that I needed to find a much quicker activity.  We are starting to add the A (Art) to make our STEM school a more STEAM school.  In the spirit of art, we decided to try this activity:

We went to youtube and found a great video on how to draw a Stormtrooper.  All you have to do is project the video for all to see.  The kids grabbed black markers and went right to work.  They turned out great!  The Art Hub for Kids collection on youtube has a ton of drawing videos.  The kids were so emgaged and interested in the activity!