STEM Lab 24_25 Round 6

After an agonizingly long wait, Round 6 finally celebrated the full return of the Sinclair STEM Lab! Everyone was excited to have things back to normal, and we took full advantage of the situation with the kinds of creative, messy, wonderful project that can only happen in the lab. Kindergarten and first grade stepped up their coding skills while programming Robo-mouse. The second graders "graduated" from Scratch Jr. to the full version of Scratch. In grades 3 through 5 we made up for lost time and dove into some building projects.  Third grade built cardboard arcade. Meanwhile fourth grade wrote Scratch programs that make music and built cardboard instruments to play the code they created. Fifth grade returned to their tiny museum projects building a physical version of their virtual museum. All three grade presented their work to a visiting class from the primary grades.

Kindergarten & 1st Grade

Robo-mouse is always a huge hit with our youngest programmers here in the lab. It is also an important step in the development of their algorithmic thinking because the robot's programs have to be structured a little differently from what the students are used to from Code.org. In Code.org, students write programs using the cardinal directions. As a result, the students do not have to consider turns when writing their programs. They just have to instruct the character to north or east or whatever. With Robo-mouse however, the students need to decide whether the robot need to turn left or right before instructing it to move forward. While most of the 1st graders remembered this from last year, it was a fairly big adjustment for the kindergartners. They persevered through their early frustrations and by the end of the week were building elaborate mazes and programming Robo-mouse to run them. 

2nd Grade

Something that the 2nd graders have come to look forward to each year is the point when they step up to using "real" Scratch rather than Scratch Jr. So there was considerable excitement when students arrived in the lab for the first time this year and saw that their promotion to Scratch was at hand. We started the week with a code along activity in which I walked them through the process of adding characters and backgrounds and then coding them to do things. Scratch has a LOT more going on than Scratch Jr and that can be a tremendous distraction as when the students discover the hundreds of hilarious noises in the sound library and feel the need to listen to every single one. However, this vast array of added commands is what makes Scratch such a powerful creative tool. 

3rd Grade

One of the hardest things about being chained to a cart for the first two thirds of the year was the need to water down the projects so as to minimize the movement of materials and the mess generated by building projects. One building project that simply could not be adapted to the cart life is cardboard arcade. It is certainly one of my favorite projects and I know it is something the students look forward to. The project is inspired by the short film Caine's Arcade, which kicks off the week. Afterwards, the students start planning what they will build, either in pairs or independently. The middle of the week is for building. In the process, they learn to use L-braces and flanges along with liquid glue to build stable structures. They test and refine their projects until they have a playable game. The week ends with the students presenting their games to a visiting class and whichever our our administrators are able to attend. Occasionally the 3rd grade classroom teachers will drop by. Every year I am impressed by the creativity the students display in their cardboard arcade games, and this year was no exception. 

4th Grade

In 4th grade, the first real building project of the year combined physical and digital elements. First, the students used Scratch to create a program that plays drums and notes when different keys are pressed on the keyboard. This is something they have worked with before. The real challenge was to then create a controller for the program using cardboard, construction paper, copper tape, and the Makey Makey. What I love about this project is that it has a rather low floor, and it is easy to code and build something that will work, but the possibilities are endless in terms of the creative directions students can go with it. We ended up with guitars, pianos, and drum kits, but we also had musical donuts, pencils, and baseball bats. Each class presented to one of our kindergarten classes.

5th Grade

Some of the STEM lab projects are too involved to be completed in just one week. With those projects, students complete the research and digital work during the first week, and then do the physical building and presenting the next time they are in the lab. You may recall that 5th grade started the tiny museum project back in round 4. When it started to look like we would get the lab back in time for round 6, I held off on doing the pared down version of the 2nd part project in hopes of being able to do the physical building and presentation piece for real. Thankfully, that is exactly how things worked out. 

The second half of the tiny museum project has students build a physical model of their digital museum room. The door to this model is wired to the Makey Makey and opening it triggers the program to run and narrate to the user about the objects in the room. Owing to the time gap between parts one and two, students needed some time to refresh their memories about the first part of the project. Many wanted to make improvements, which was fine of course. Students assembled their tiny rooms from a net I had traced for them and then built models of the objects in the virtual museum room. Copper tape was added to make the switch on the door. On Friday the classes shared their work with a class of second graders. 

STEM Lab 24_25 Round 5

The mobile STEM Lab cart rolls on and student greatness ensues. Round 5 was heavy on creative computing projects in Code.org and Scratch, but there was also some physical computing in 3rd grade. The long awaited return to normalcy is finally upon us, and come Monday, March 3rd, the STEM Lab will be restored to its former glory. Round 6 is going to be amazing!

Kindergarten, 1st, & 2nd Grades

The primary grades went back to work in Code.org this round. However, rather than picking up where they left off in their various courses, students skipped ahead in order to be sure of covering all of the important programming concepts for their grade. Kindergarten did a number of lessons centered on using loops (repeats) effectively. There were lessons at each level using code to create drawings and games. Second grade had the chance to try out some different activities that involved coding music and programming in Minecraft. A few students were even able to complete their grade level Code.org course!

3rd Grade

During this round the 3rd  graders returned to a project they started way back in October/ November. Back then they researched a science topic and then coded a Scratch project to share what they learned. The students added pictures from Britannica School and used key press events to switch between them. Each picture shared facts related to the image. 

To complete the project students created a poster that complemented their Scratch project. They added copper foil tape wires to the poster to act as "buttons" used to trigger the key presses that run the Scratch project. The poster was connected to the computer with an input/output device called Makey Makey. (The Makey Makey allows one to use any electrical conductor as a switch controlling key presses on the computer.) At the end of the week, with posters and Scratch projects complete, students presented their work to a visiting class from Kindergarten. This presentation piece is an important part of the STEM lab curriculum and being cart bound has limited how much of it I have been able to do this year. The Scratch projects from round 3 can be found in this studio.

4th Grade

The 4th graders worked on a Scratch project in this round using the Ask and Answer commands. This pair of commands lets the students write programs that solicit user input and to respond to the inputs received. We started the week by exploring some example projects and discussing how they used Ask and Answer blocks. As a group we brainstormed a few ideas for the kinds of projects these blocks could be used for, then the students went to work. They created a dazzling array of projects ranging from quizzes to chat-bots to mad libs to choose your own adventure stories. The projects were added to a class studio where the students could try out the projects created by their peers. Part of the project included leaving constructive feedback for their peers in the different projects' comment section. This last piece is part of practicing good digital citizenship.

5th Grade

One of the trickier programming concepts to master is using lists. A list in a computer program is exactly what it sounds like, an ordered collection of bits of information. The confusion comes from the fairly large number of commands needed to use a list in a program. Many of these commands need to be nested withing other commands in a particular order to work properly. Fifth grade's prompt this round was to create a project that uses lists. As with the 4th grade project, we began with a selection example projects. After talking about those I led a code along so students could practice creating and manipulating lists. Next, students got to work on list projects of their own. There was a lot of testing and revising of code to get things working, and I am really proud of the perseverance the students showed. It was especially great to see students helping each other through the troubleshooting process. The projects have been collected in this studio. 

STEM Lab 24_25 Round 4

It is hard to believe that we are already at the end of Round 4 in the STEM Lab, but here we are. Things got a little scrambled in 2nd a 4th grades on account of my having to be out for a few days during the first week of this round. Not to worry though, because those classes did the round 5 project that week, and they will do the round 4 project during the first week of round 5. Now let's dive into the amazing work the students did...

Kindergarten & 1st Grade

In this round our Kinder and 1st graders went unplugged and learned to make several origami models. For most of the Kinder students, this was their first experience with origami. We discussed the origins of the art in Japan and looked at a map to see where Japan is in relation to Houston. In Japanese "origami" means "folded paper". We likened the steps of creating origami models to the steps we follow when writing computer programs.

Most of the first grade students did an origami unit with me when they were in kindergarten, and a great many of them remembered how to make the models we learned then. We reviewed the vocabulary for the unit and the different types of folds. The models I introduced them to this year were a bit more challenging, but with some practice everyone succeeded in completing them. 

All of the paper we use for this unit is standard rectangular copier paper that I chop into squares with the paper cutter. This leaves me with hundreds of 2.5" by 8.5" strips of paper that I cannot bear to just throw away. So each year, the origami unit also includes a day of 2-frame animations. I love the origami part of this unit, but I love this part even more because of the outstandingly creative animations the students make. The highlight reel below is just a small sample.

2nd Grade

One of the many drawbacks of not teaching in my own room so far this year has been not having the full complement of tools that I am accustomed to using. We felt that lack pretty keenly during this 2nd grade project, creating an animated story retell in Scratch Jr. The 2nd grade Chromebooks do not have Scratch Jr and I am not able to cart enough devices out the 2nd grade buildings. It is not a huge problem, but I do not like having to force partnerships on creative projects if it can be avoided. Fortunately we managed without any major issues.

The project started with a story map on which students sketched out the beginning, middle, and end of their chosen story. They also planned how they would draw the settings and characters, and wrote out the dialogue. Most groups chose books they have read or had read to them, but some created original stories. This is the most involved project they have ever done in Scratch Jr, and the process of planning, coding, and debugging mirrors what they will be doing in their 3rd through 5th grade projects. 

3rd Grade

We took a break from the science themed Scratch projects started in round 3 and explored some of the extensions available in Scratch this round. (We will return to the science projects in round 5.) Extensions are additional sets of command blocks with a particular function. In this round, students experimented with the pen and music extensions. The pen blocks turn sprites into drawing tools that make marks on the background as they move. The music blocks allow students to compose drum beats, rhythms, melodies in their projects. The first 2 days of the week students had a getting started guide for each extension and had some time to explore. The rest of the week had students creating an original project incorporating both extensions. There is so much amazing, all of which can be seen in the studio.

4th Grade

In the last round, the 4th grade researched the life and work of an important artist or scientist. They created a Scratch project to share what they learned. 

In normal times, this round would have students constructing a 3D model of their chosen person that functions as an interactive display when combined with the Makey Makey. Alas, these are not normal times and I was forced to turn the building part of this project into an interactive poster. This annoys me because most of these students made an interactive poster in 3rd grade and I despise having to recycle projects. 

Anyway... the posters looked great and the students did a wonderful job of presenting their work to visiting 1st grade classes and administrators. See below for a highlight reel.

5th Grade

This round was the first of a 2 part project. The students chose a research topic, took notes on their topic, and then created a virtual museum display to share what they learned. Students selected a few objects for their display that best help to illustrate to most important elements of the topic. The Scratch project was coded in such a way that the display has a digital narrator that explains each objects and shares information. The projects can be seen in the studio, but some are works in progress at this point thanks to short weeks, testing, absences, etc. We will return to these in round 6 to finish coding, build and interactive physical display, and to present to a visiting class. In the meantime, you can check out the works in progress in the studio.