Continue reading »]]> Finishing touches were made on the cars this past week.  The girls figured out how to get steering wheels to turn, head lights to work, and one even did a double motor with all wheel drive!  They were designing for two tasks- durability during the obstacle course and speed.  They had a blast driving their cars through the tough terrain and race track.  These kits were very cool!

Continue reading »]]> This week, the girls worked with Lego MIndstorm kits to design a car.  First they brainstormed and drew a plan, then they selected wheels, and finally they begin building.  What I loved about about it was how quickly the girls starting asking questions and trying out different connections to see if they could get their cars to do anything else besides drive forward.  Many of them had drivable cars by the end of class.  Next week, we will do any modifications to our designs and race them.  Hopefully we will have time to do an obstacle course, too!

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Continue reading »]]> For our last two meetings of the Harley School Girl’s STEM Club fall session, I decided to get back to the basics of our club: building.  These girls love to build with anything they can get their hands on! It is my hope that with more exposure to building, the girls will develop a passion for STEM.  For the past two weeks, the girls were presented with the task of building constructions to mimic what they would see in the popular game- Minecraft!  In Minecraft, the kids get to craft a world of their own!  There are animals,farms, cities, and everything in between.   You are only limited by your own imagination. If you have walked the halls of an elementary school, chances are you have heard about Minecraft.  Kids today can’t seem to get enough of it. They love building constructions out of 3D cubes.  Boys and girls are wearing shirts, playing with stuffed animals and toys, and playing the video game to their hearts content.  For me, I saw this as an opportunity to take the game past the computer! I thought we could build some of these constructions in real life. For the last two sessions of STEM club, the girls were presented with the idea of building Minecraft-like structures.  The building materials used would be Legos or Brackitz.  We talked about how the basis of Minecraft building is with a 3D cube.  The first thing we did was sit down to discuss the geometric shape of the cube.  It was easy to see a cube in legos, but Brackitz required a bit of work.  They had to construct their cubes first, and then build with it. This took them a couple of attempts and lots of great math thinking!  The girls were given a choice of what materials they would like to build with.

Attempting to make a cube with Brackitz

The next step was learning how to build Minecraft structures.  The girls explored blueprints and 3D structures.  We discussed how to crate a flat 2D shape following the blueprint and also how to construct 3D ones.  They had their choice to craft people, animals, or buildings, they could make them 2D or 3D, and also chose their materials to build with.  There was a lot to think about.

the making of a pig!

Claire decided to build a lighthouse

The girls decided what was their design-challenge would be  and got to work.  Emily and Claire chose Brackitz.  They loved the challenge of building with these and could not wait to start constructing the 3D cubes.   Elizabeth, Isabel, and Ali chose to follow the blueprints and create a 2D structure.  They decided to make a creeper and Steve.  Excellent choices.

A 2D creeper!

both girls busy at work!

Addy, Elizabeth, and Maddy decided to build a 3D animal.  2 foxes and a chicken would be added to our creations.

Minecraft foxes are off to a great start!

This project took two sessions to complete. They were extremely focused on the task at hand.

great team work!

Claire has made a lighthouse! Now to give it some color!

The 2D shapes are coming along.  The girls had no trouble following the blueprint!

The finished product

Steve

The animals were so cute!  We wish we could take them home!

Do these spikes look good on him?

It is really starting to look like a chicken!

a finished chicken

Once the feet were build, the rest of the chicken came together rather quickly.        

The buildings were not an easy design task.  The girls carefully selected their pieces and worked hard both afternoons.

The girls with the brackets had a lot to think about.  Building, cutting, taping, and creating.  The girls were surprised how durable their structures were.  It was part of the design thinking.  If one part was weak, they had to think about how  to make it stronger.  There was a lot of trial and error, but in the end, they were proud of what they accomplished.  The lighthouse and the pig turned out great!

the finished lighthouse

side view of the pig

almost there

The finished pig!

The girls were all very proud of their work.  We hope to share the finished product and also our process at our lower school assembly.  We host it once a week for the school and parents to see what we are doing at our school.  Great building girls!

Continue reading »]]> Due to popularity of the Lego Movie, the girls were presented with the idea of making their own movie – they were thrilled with this task!

For our movie, we used the Lego Movie App. It is Lego’s free stop motion movie app and who doesn’t love free!?! The girls watched a video on how to make a movie, and we couldn’t resist watching a few lego movies on YouTube. They were awesome, and we instantly became inspired!

We decided to vote on a theme for our movie. All kinds of ideas were tossed out- from a lego movie about Ben Franklin to how Emmet and Wild Style meet. We voted and decided a birthday party for Emmet would be fun. Somehow it turned into a lego beach birthday party (even better).

Day 1 was spent building the set. The girls were so engaged. They had so many ideas, yet through it all, some good team work was happening. Sometimes they would shout out an idea for what the birthday party needed and then someone would volunteer to make it. It was impressive to watch their compromising and negotiating.

Day 2 was spent making finishing touches to the set and then making the movie. I thought I would have to help more with the technology piece, but it was so easy for them. They naturally made an order for taking turns taking the pictures and they had no trouble navigating the app.

They did great for their first time! Madison was Wild Style, Clair was the small car, Ali was the larger car, Anika was Emmet, and Addy was the horse. It was a fun afternoon! Here is the movie!

Continue reading »]]> Today the girls participated in building centers. Their task was to work in pairs at one center. Each center had a different option for building. Before we began, I showed them the options of toys for building. What they saw was a bunch of fun stuff they couldn’t wait to get there hands on. What they did not realize was I was very interested in their interactions with the toys. How did they build? Did they play? I had two toy choices available that were open- ended play, while the other two were direction-following, more scripted toys.

I was excited to see what they would do.

First they were allowed to chose what they wanted to build. The scripted Lego kits were snatched up first (after all- this is Lego Club for girls!) and the tinker toys were also picked. No one selected the Paolo blocks- I will have to get these girls to try them later. They are honestly really cool!

The girls worked in pairs and the first chunk of time was quiet. (That is rare for girls club). Then, I was starting to observe a lot in their interactions.

Addy and Ali worked together on a Tangled tower. Ali followed the directions to a “T” and I was impressed with what was able to get done in such a small amount of time. Addy, who is four, just played.

Claire and Elizabeth were working on the Lego Friends Brickmaster story set. They honestly could care less about the story and just wanted to build. They skipped right into the directions part of the book. Once one chapter’s parts were assembled, they quickly took it down (no playing) in order to try out the next chapter’s buildings. I was surprised by this, as I would have thought the girls would play with the items they made and interact with them. I think lego was hoping for that too, but for these girls… They just wanted to build.

Madison and Anika were building with the Tinker Toys and their imaginations went to work. Madison started to create a giant creature and Anika was building a horse stable. What was interesting about them was that in about 10 minutes time they were using what they had build separately, to play together. They had a very detailed story with a captured princess. Every time something was needed they dove into the pile to make it, all while playing.
These open ended toys sure did provoke more imagination and creativity.

I’m not saying the open-ended toys are better. I think the ones with directions promote great spacial skills and abilities. Those toys are hard work and take determination. The open-ended toys seem to use a completely different side of the brain. These girls were immersed in their play all while building. In the end, both types are all about learning physics, scale, loading constraints, structure, and much more. These girls are building more than just a creation every time they are building.

The centers were fun. The girls wanted to stay where they were the entire time and not switch. I would like to have them switch another time to try out other the toys. I am interested to see if it changes their interactions with bulding.

Continue reading »]]> As I thought about what to do this past week for STEM club, I couldn’t help but want to give the pigeon one last adventure. (The pigeon is carried over from our last week’s book Don’t let the Pigeon Ride the Bus ). The girls settled in to hear about the story and new STEM task that awaited them – the pigeon wanted to drive a race car! The task was to build a car out of legos for the pigeon, but how would it get its power to go fast? Thats when I gave them the idea of a Lego ballon race car. All girls LOVE balloons (more than they love pigeons).

We discussed how to build it and what we had to consider for our design. Once we had an idea, we went downstairs to the Lego table. The girls wanted to get their hands on the balloon, but I wouldn’t allow them until their car was built.

They started to select wheels, and to my surprise, they all started testing what to use in oder to have a hole for the ballon end.

Elizabeth and Olivia went for windows – pretty clever.

The girls today were all about simplicity. Once their lego car was complete (with pigeon attached) they started to do some test runs.

During the test runs they realized – Lego cars are difficult! The balloons did not cooperate and they kept going back to fix their designs.

Out of the 4 Pigeon Balloon cars that raced, only two were successful at even moving. Madison’s went 49 inches and Elizabeths went 8.

Perhaps the pigeon should just stick to driving buses after all!

Continue reading »]]> Legos are great.  They are classic and never go out of style.  I remember as a child digging through a giant bin of mismatched lego pieces at my grandmother’s house and being entertained for hours.  The challenge for girls is to make them more appealing.  I have a bin of legos in my classroom, and when the kids have choice time, the boys gravitate right towards them.  I really want the girls in my class to be just as excited about legos.

Girls do enjoy building, but they like to story-tell along the way.  My challenge for this club was to build upon strengths girls already have.   In general, girls at the age of 8 and 9 tend to surpass the boys in their class in reading , writing, and language.  I have a girl at home myself, and she is never at a loss for what to say.  I wanted to take what I already know about girls and then use it as a foundation for  my STEM club.

We started with the most inspiring, girl-power story I know.  It is called The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.   I read the story to the girls first.  It is a great story about how Princess Elizabeth’s castle was destroyed by a fire-breathing dragon.  The dragon stole her one true love, Prince Ronald.  Well, Princess Elizabeth was much too smart for the dragon and tricked him into falling asleep.  She managed to save the prince, but he was so ungrateful that she called him a bum and decided not to marry him after all.

The girls were given the task of finishing the story and creating a new kingdom for princess Elizabeth.  They selected their own princess and began to finish the story.  It was so exciting to see just how serious they took this task.  They came up with their own plan and design and got to work.

Here is what they came up with!

Elizabeth built a wonderful castle with an elevator and made sure her princess had plenty of guards

Maddy’s castle had many windows and the princess had her own car

Olivia’s castle had it’s own loft with staircase and a bedroom. She also worked to make sure her princess had a flatscreen tv!

Margot’s castle was simple but secure. She made sure her castle had a bedroom for the princess and a storage place for her treasure.

The girls worked well together and had a lot of fun.  The last few minutes of STEM club, we took the time to share what we did.  Each girl had a chance to speak and finish the story.  I think Princess Elizabeth will go on to live a very happy life in her new home!