Halloween STEM Project

We have been learning about spiders in our science journals recently and these Spider Web Bridges from Brooke Brown - Teach Outside the Box fit right in for our Friday STEM project.  

We started by making a blueprint for our designs, each student drew a picture of what the design they thought would hold the most blocks (unifix cubes).  Then they got into groups to strategize and begin working on their Spider Bridges. 

Some groups worked really well together! They jumped right in and got to work.  

Other groups had a harder time coming together.  They each wanted to create their own design, not work together to try each design.  

 I anticipated each group would spend about 30 minutes working until they were ready to start testing their web bridges.  This was 45 minutes in.....

Not quite ready!

An hour in....  Almost there!

I made an executive decision.... Time to test for success!

 Not enough "web" but plenty of tape!

  Looks good!

Probably a little TOO much "web" and not enough tape!

After many attempts to have the most blocks on their webs, each group had to evaluate their work. They had to write down what worked well, what was challenging, and how they improved their designs.  Some groups realized things were not working and started over (multiple times); some groups were very methodical and took their time.  No matter how they did it, it was a win in my book!  The kids had to work together (a very hard thing to do in 1st grade) and they had an amazing amount of stamina!  In the end they spent approximately 2 hours working! We did have our lunch in the middle, but I was highly impressed!  

Next up Pumpkin Catapults!

Leprechaun Traps

Have you ever set a leprechaun trap? This was the first time I've had my students build leprechaun traps.  It was a great STEM project!  I had my class draw a "blueprint" for their trap and write the directions they thought they would follow to build their trap and then they went home....

They each did a FANTASTIC job ~ or their parents really did :)  We looked on Pinterest as a class to give them some ideas before they started drawing their blueprints.  You can find some great ideas at Moms and Munchkins. Everyone took turns explaining how their trap was going to catch a leprechaun. Then we set them up all around the classroom at the end of the school day and crossed our fingers that we might catch a leprechaun!  The kids had so many things they were going to wish for if they caught the little guy.....

NO LUCK! The kids were bummed that no one caught a leprechaun. But they enjoyed the "bag of gold" our leprechaun left.

And then they had to clean up the mess our mischievous leprechaun left for us.....

In the end, it was a great day and a wonderful project that allowed parents to get involved. It's definitely a keeper and maybe, just maybe, we might catch that sneaky leprechaun next year.....