Engineering Cacti

One of the things we have been reading and learning about in science is interdependence - how plants and animals in an environment depend on each other.  First we talked about their suggestion of a forest environment and read a book called One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner that tells how a hole could form in a tree and the different forest animals that might make their homes there.  Then for a more unfamiliar environment, we have looked more closely at a desert.  I read the class two books:  Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson and Desert Giant by Barbara Bash, both of which describe animals that depend on the saguaro cactus for homes or food.  We used Google Maps to travel to Saguaro National Park and look around in street view at the cacti.  We also watched a short video clip showing many of the animals we had read about.  With all these resources we talked about what examples we found of animals making homes in the cactus or eating parts of it.

Now we are working on an engineering project to make a model showing some of the examples of interdependence we have learned about.  The model must have a 3D cactus that is between 3 and 6 popsicle sticks tall.  It must be able to stand on its own.  Then students must add three 3 D animals to their cactus and write an information card telling why each one needs the saguaro cactus.

Here are some groups hard at work on their plans:

Now we are hard at work to complete the cacti and animals:

I can't wait to see how these projects turn out!

Cardboard Creations!

On Friday students across Cannon showed what they can do with a bunch of cardboard boxes.  In our class we had Ryan's robot, Jovan's racetrack, Ava Grace's cash register, Yelysey's elephant book shelf, Carson's weight lifting equipment, and Landon's rocket!  We went on a gallery walk around the school and saw many other cool creations by students in other classes.  It is always great to see how many very different ideas the kids can come up with!  Thanks to all of those who participated!  Your creations will be on display in November in the Cardboard Museum at our Family STEM Night.  (Then you can take them home.)

First Grade Excitement

We have had an exciting couple of days in 1st grade! On Thursday we  got a betta fish for our class.  We reviewed the needs of living things and how we would provide for those needs as we got his aquarium set up.  We did a bit of research to learn more about betta fish.  Many names were suggested, and after a vote the winning name was Penny.  Penny is currently enjoying his new home in our class.  He will be one of our references as we learn more about living things in science.

Friday morning in math students enjoyed a math treasure hunt.  They used their iPads to scan QR codes, solved math problems, and found that answer to scan the next QR code.  When they had solved all their math problems, the last QR code led to a fun music video as a reward.  In our next math units we will be learning about geometry and fractions!  More math fun lies ahead.

Then Friday afternoon during our Create Time, we went to the media lab for our first robotics lesson.  Students worked in pairs to follow the directions on the laptops and build a Lego lion.  Then they practiced some coding skills to program it to stand up and lie down.  This was a very popular activity and we will definitely go back for more robotics!  Here is a short video of how it moved and some more photos of hard working engineers:

Legoland Field Trip

Yesterday's trip to Legoland was a big hit with the kids!  Like the song says, everything was awesome! We began with the introduction in the factory area:

Then we tried to save the princess by shooting trolls on the laser ride.  Next students had a bit of free play time in the giant climbing area:

Then our group had our building class.  Students learned how to give their structures a strong, wide base to make them less wobbly so they could stand up during an earthquake.  They worked as a team to build tall towers.  Students also learned vocabulary like architect, base, and natural disaster.  Here are some of our sturdy and not-so-sturdy towers:

After our class we had a little more time, so we went to see Miniland, which had fantastic Lego models of many DFW area landmarks:

Our last stop before leaving was to drive the Lego cars.  Here are some great 1st grade drivers:

Thanks so much to all our parent chaperones!  I really appreciated all your work keeping up with our very excited kids!  It was awesome!

Building Challenge

Students worked with partners to build a structure that could hold a heavy container of washers and that had an opening that we could slide a plastic cup through.  They earned more points for using fewer blocks in their designs.  Then, if they achieved these things, we gave their buildings a little "earthquake" test...  Here are our engineers hard at work!

Building in the Engineering Lab!

We tried various building sets and activities in the lab today!