Hunting for Dinosaur Eggs

The final project was a ton of fun. We decided to teach a lesson on using your reassuring skills. It started off with us giving our best dry bone introduction until Becca the paleontologist rushed in the door and interrupted us with her latest mystery. There were dinosaur tracks all over the building and we need to figure out who put them there. The class was split into two groups and handed paper to jot their discoveries down on. One group had the mighty Stegosaurus and the other side had the scary Velociraptor. We took off down the hall following the tracks which mysteriously led into the elevator. In there the Velociraptor group found their first egg. Inside they found a QR code to scan. They quickly joted down a few facts before following the tracks out side. They spread out and tried to find the eggs. They were hidden up trees, in bushes, and be hide doors. The "I'm a Dinosaur" videos we used were really cute and a great opportunity to draw pictures. I was surprised at how excited college kids can get with a dinosaur hunt. Once each group had all four eggs we went back upstairs to share the facts and determine which group's dinosaur laid the tracks. It turned out to be the scary Velociraptor. Overall I think the presentation went very well. If I were to change anything it would have to be the end presentations. I would want them more structured so they do not feel like an after thought. My favorite part was how active our lesson was. I really enjoyed leaving the classroom and walking around outside. This was awesome and I hope I can do more fun activities like this soon.

Bristle Bots

This week we had a show down of the bristle bots. We had three categories to compete in and it was so much fun. We named our bot Jeffery. We off set the bristles hoping it would go in a circle. It did just a bigger circle than planned. He constantly tried to run away. I think that he forgot his middle name was David as he saw his competitors. We also struggled we getting the wires to touch the battery. They constantly tried to come undone. Once we got the wires and battery connected then the battery would start to run out of juice. We tried all sorts of tricks but ended up taping the wire on right be for a round. I really enjoyed this project. It had so much potential to be used how ever you want to. It also really gives the opportunity for students to get creative and experience failure in a safe environment.

Making Musical Munchies

This week I got to work with Makey Makey. Someone forgot the instructions so we just winged it. It was trial and error in the beginning when we were hooking it up and trying to make it play. Eventually we figured it out and we ran into the what now question. It started with us connecting hands so we could all play notes. We then played marry had a little lamb with our noses. We then decided that Play-Doh keys were too boring so we made cookie keys. We tested out if you could play a song just eating bits of cookies. It worked! Imagine dinner becoming a musical experience. We continued down the path of what else can we do. We decided to make Becca a musical instrument. She held the black wire and we held the rest. Becca makes a lovely piano by the way. Towards the end we started talking about how we learned about electricity. Becca was about the only one who had any fun because she was home schooled. We all agreed that we wish we had been taught this way. Makey Makey definitely has the ability to be student driven and I think it can be used at any age above six or seven.

3-D printing!

Today I finally got to 3-D printing. I have been working with the programs before class for a couple of weeks. The main one I have used is Tinkercad. I asked my group if we could work with 3-D printing and they said yes! I made it all the way through the tutorial so I was feeling pretty confident. Everybody brainstormed with play-doh. We ended up with lots of things including an octopus made by the lovely Summer. I love the idea of letting students brainstorm this way to figure out all the shapes they will need. We ended up making a key chain for Becca. This whole project could be used to teach so many lessons. The most obvious one would probably be teaching shapes, volume, and surface area. When you are working with 3-D shapes these lessons go hand-in-hand. Another lesson could be using the metric system. The program we used uses the metric system and I had to think about how a millimeter is compared to an inch for a little bit. The program also runs on planes, so for a middle school classroom you could teach them about the different planes. Once we got the key chain made, we plugged my computer in and printed it. It took a while to download the program to my computer. It was so exciting once it started working though. 3-D printing can be used in just about every classroom young and old.

Yetis and Twisters

Today we worked with the Yeti microphone. The challenge was to make a podcast or remix a song. The biggest challenge, though, was to figure out how to work the microphone. Google does a fantastic job of finding tutorials and help articles. While half of us worked on that, we got to work on remixing a song. We decided to remix a Disney song. Becca discovered her hidden talent at improv singing. We finally decided on a PSA for California students who come to Sterling College. We titled it Twister From the East. Once we started singing, it would not save. We went back to Google and found another YouTube video. In high school, my history class did a similar project to this challenge. We had to remix songs and write about the plague. I feel like second graders could really get into pod-casting. Song remixes could be harder since not every child listens to music at that point in their lives.

Tying textiles into the classroom

The first station I completed dealt with textiles in the classroom.  We were given the choice between two projects. We could either make bags or make necklaces out of neck ties. I choose the tie because it looked a little more complicated. During this project we ran into multiple problems. The first one was that we were missing crucial supplies. The necklace required beads and buttons both of which we did not have but we did have ties. I choose a clip on tie. Trying to unknot it was quite adventurous. I now understand how it a clip on tie works. Then I started to rip the seams out so I could make the bag. The black lining turned out to be a tie shaped piece of fabric floating freely in the middle. I had to revamp the pattern and make my own lining. When we started to use the sewing machine we discovered that it was broken. Becca quickly started working on that. I decided to let her take over and work on figuring out how to fix my tie. I think the tension of the bobbin was a little too loose, but I would have to tinker with it a bit myself. On my sewing machine at home, you could fix that by turning a tiny screw above the bobbin holder about a 1/16 to a 1/8 of a turn. It does not take much. The reason I think the tension is off is because the top stitching looked perfectly fine but the bottom looked like a war zone. Towards the end I decided just to use the hot glue gun instead of the sewing machine. The glue gun was high temp so I burnt myself a couple of times with the glue. This probably one of the reasons kids are not allowed to have hot glue. Once I got back to my room, I dug into my button jar. I found a really cute heart button and I sewed it on. Next time I would probably sew the button on before I sewed it all together so I do not have to fight my lining. I crocheted a little string to go around the button to hold the bag shut. Since I used hot glue I had to find a section with less glue to pull the string through. This project definitely had a lot of kinks, but I can see how useful it could be in a classroom. I really want to teach lower elementary so sewing machines could be dangerous, but if I could modify the project. Maybe I could start by teaching the how to sew on buttons. There is a lot of hand eye coordination needed, make them look nice and neat. If I taught second grade I could use it when they start to learn how to multiply.