Get ready to start the year off right by using school-wide STEM challenges!  This one is one of my new favorites!

Can your classroom create the tallest free-standing balloon tower?

All you need is a pack of assorted balloons from the dollar store for each classroom and some masking tape!  Each classroom needs to create the tallest balloon tower from the balloons.  The tower must be free-standing.  These balloon towers look amazing when they are set up outside each classroom (especially in time for those Open House and Curriculum Nights)!

For each of the monthly STEM challenges, we connect them with fiction and non-fiction books.  The two books we are using with this challenge are:

Balloon Trees by Danna Smith  Ever wonder how a balloon is made? Follow the journey of a balloon from its beginnings as gooey sap in a tree to its completion at a rubber factory. You'll be surprised to discover what a balloon started out as and how it becomes the bright, air-filled decoration that you enjoy today.

Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm by Mark Buehner   Harvey Potter was a very strange fellow indeed. He was a farmer but not like any farmer you've ever met. He didn't grow corn, okra, or tomatoes. Harvey Potter grew balloons. No one knew exactly how he did it, but with the help of the light of a full moon, one friendly child catches a peek of just how Harvey Potter does it. And keeps some magic for herself.

The first book is a work on non-fiction and the second is fiction.  Both books explain how balloons are made (the fictional title is a hoot).  These two books provide a great opportunity for students to compare and contrast multiple texts.

You can purchse my Balloon Tower pack here!

Stay tuned for more school-wide challenges!  They are great way to involve all students and teachers in STEM!

I know I am always excited about the start of shark week, so I hope you are, too!  It is one of the most exciting weeks of television all summer long and it always seems to coincide with my own beach vacation...yikes!

Quite a few sharktastic bloggers have teamed up to create a Shark Week blog hop that is full of shark-related freebies!  Be sure to swim on over and stalk some of these other fintastic bloggers and their amazing resources!  Sharks are always a HOT topic in my classroom.

Math Mats are what I use for my Friday review in math. I copy the two pages side by side on a sheet of 11 x 17 paper. Each week, I use a different food or candy item (in small quantities) and the students do mixed fact practice while enjoying the treat! Highly engaging and fun! Also includes a certificate (to celebrate mastery) and a list of optional extension projects (for those who finish early). These are a ton of fun! This one uses Gummy Sharks!

Students look forward to doing math, especially with candy!  Get ready for your students to take a CHOMP out of math with this great pack!

Ready for your next FREEBIE?  Head on over to Just Reed for a great Shark Bait freebie!

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!  

As the culminating activity for our Force & Motion unit, we created paper roller coasters.  You can purchase the paper roller coaster kits by clicking here.  We began by making the framework, then added the roller coaster elements, testing them as we went.  Once the coasters were finished, students created names for their coasters and posters and descriptions of the ride the marble takes on their coaster.  Students each had a specific job.

As you can see from the photos, each design is unique.  The paper roller coaster kits allow for a lot of student choice in their roller coaster designs!

We did roller coaster labs with pipe insulation before trying the paper roller coasters.  In those labs, students worked on understanding each individual element (loops, curves, hills, corkscrews, tunnels, hills) and the effect each element had on their marble.  We created posters and students recorded their observations on post-it notes.

We also created vocabulary posters related to the science behind the challenges.  These posters have a definition written in the students' own words as well as a diagram to illustrate the word.

If you are interested in purchasing the roller coaster starter pack (with foam pipe insulation), click here.