10 Apples up on Top

100th day - Lego challenge

3 Little Pigs

Animal camouflage

Animals at the Pond

Balance a bird

Building Up

Bunny copters
Chromatography butterflies

Codespark

Craft stick puzzles

Curling

Elf shelf/gnome home

Fall Legos

Free choice

Free choice rules

Friction sleds

Gingerbread boys centers

Gravity Glue

Halloween centers

How I Met My Monster

Humpty's Wall

Ice cube challenge

If I Built a House/Car/School
Keva Plank - Tallest Tower II

Keva plank - tallest tower I

Keva Planks - Boxitects

Lego - fairy tale setting

Lego bridges - K version

Lego cars

Lego cars - wind-powered

Lego Challenge Cards

Lego symmetry

Lego symmetry II
Leprechaun traps

Magnet centers

Muncha Muncha Muncha

My Dream Playground

Paper chain challenge

Peaceful gardens

Perfect Square

Play & Learn Science

Pumpkin Palooza
Room on the Broom

Scavenger Hunt

Shadows

Shape Monsters

Snap cube spinners

Snowflake geometry

Snowflake tinker trays

Sorting and classifying

Spiders

Starfall

Thanksgiving Tables

Tinfoil boats

Tippy Hide

Turkey Traps

Why do leaves turn colors in

the fall?
Listen to this Jason Mraz-style version of the Dr. Seuss classic and then have students create a snap cube tower
20 blocks high and balance a piece of foam fruit at the top. YouTube: 10 Apples Up on Top Song in the style of
Jason Mraz.
Using only 100 legos, build the tallest tower you can.

Listen to a read-aloud of The Three Little Pigs and then have students build two houses: one that the wolf can
definitely knock down and one that they think the wolf cannot knock down. When both houses are done, test
them with a hair drying with the wolf's face taped to it for 10 seconds.

Watch the Mystery Science video, "Why are polar bears white?" and then have students color a moth so that it
camouflages into the classroom (not hides, but camouflages). Students tape their moths in place and the follow
week we become predators and walk the room, counting how many moths we can see.

Have each student pick a plastic animal figurine out as they walk into the room. Tell them that today the table
is a pond and each of them are a house around the pond. The animals would like to get to one another more
quickly than walking around the pond, so the table needs to build bridges and docks so they can quickly walk to
each others' houses. To make this more difficult, some years I limit supplies and/or require the bridges and
docks to all be the same height.

Listen to the Mystery Science mini-lesson about crazy balancing acts (I can't locate it to name it right now) and
then have students build a "bird" that they can balance on their finger as they walk around the room. The bird
is made from a pipe cleaner, popsicle stick, and two washers. As long as the washers are below the center of
gravity, the bird will balance, but don't tell them this. Design Squad Global on YouTube also has a video about
center of balance called Balance Magic.

Listen to the story, "Building Up" and look at the pictures for inspiration about how engineers can build. Then
have some time building using whatever material inspires you.

Tie in with how seeds are designed to travel away from the parent plant. Printable here and searchable under
"Bunny Copters": https://www.mos.org/sites/dev-elvis.mos.org/files/docs/education/mos_observing-air-and-
flight_bunny-copter.pdf
Listen to the Mystery Science mini-lesson Why are Butterflies so Colorful and then have students color two
coffee filters with markers and spritz them with water. After they dry, form them into wings and add the body
(either a pipe cleaner or clothespin). For older students, you can tie in the science of chromatography.
Programming app for grades K-5 that I usually wait until first grade to start unless a kid is really eager to start
early because they have an older sibling.

Before class I spell out each student's name on craft sticks, one stick per letter, at the bottom of the stick. Then
I tape them together and the students draw a picture on them which they can put together and practice
spelling their names.

During the Winter Olympics we watch a video about the sport of curling and then try our hand as some
homemade, laminated curling games by using colored pennies to play the game. There's a video about the
game of curling that helps students: Science Friction, all about the sphysics of curling. (YouTube)
Choose a building material and build a tower tall enough to hold the paper elf or gnome more than 12 inches
off the table surface.
Design something you would see in the fall using Legos. Start by brainstorming things that we typically see only
during the fall and have them pick from those.

The last day of class for the year I often give them as free choice so they can build with their favorite materials
or repeat an activity we did earlier in the year. They often also have some times for free
choice/building/exploration during each class period after they successfully complete the challenge.

Day 1 we talk about what the students can use, where they get materials from, how to share (3 to a large bin, 1
or 2 to a small bin), how to unlatch the lids, dig through the bin rather than dump the contents on the floor,
and put one thing away before getting another out. At clean-up time we talk about the signal (blink the lights)
for pick-up and how to quickly and quietly clean up and return to our seats for a brief engineering video.
Introduce friction and then have students rub their hands on the table (minimal friction) and then their
sneakers on the carpet (maximum friction). Have a bin of materials with high and low friction on each table for
them to test. The test is rubbing each material on your sleeve. If your sleeve moves a lot, there's a lot of
friction. If it doesn't, there isn't much friction. Then task them to build a sled that can go down both sledding
hills in the classroom (foamboard at different angles). They must use at least 3 different items from the bin to
make their sled. The sled must slide, not roll.

To prevent the gingerbread boy from running away, he needs to feel special: decorate your cut-out
gingerbread boy, build a house for him out of magnatiles or Keva planks, decorate the gingerbread house on
the magnet wall with magnets, and build a way for him to cross the river so that he doesn't need to get a ride
on the fox.
Watch the YouTube video "Gravity Glue 2014: Short Version" and then challenge students to stack 10+ rocks
using nothing but gravity and balance

Play doh monsters, play doh pumpkins, 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on the Gate, etc. as different centers.

Listen to the story, How I Met My Monster, and then sketch a monster you think would scare you into staying
in bed. When the students are mostly done sketching, I tell them to then grab a building material and build a
3D model of their monster that matches their picture and we compare features on them.

Listen to the read-aloud, "After the Fall" about how Humpty has developed a fear of heights after falling off the
wall. Design a better wall for Humpty in which he can't fall off even if a gust of wind hits him (hair dryer for 10
seconds).

Design something that will slow down how quickly an ice cube melts. We only did this once and outdoors
because it got so many materials wet, but the students had to build some sort of shade structure to protect the
ice cube from the sun.

Read one of these Chris Van Dusen books and then have the students either sketch what they would design or
build with their choice of building materials. I allow them to work in groups of 1-4, but each person has to bring
a different material into the structure.
In the spring, have the students repeat the tallest tower exercise from the fall and talk about how much their
teamwork has improved.

Working with a partner, design the tallest tower you can using only the blocks in your bin. This video will help
you understand what will happen in the fall with this lesson. Repeat it in March to see how far the students
have come with working together! https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dXb0CYzlZcs&ab_channel=ElementarySTEMwithMs.Crosman

Since the pandemic many students haven't come in with the SEL necessary to start with Keva Plank Towers I, so
I've been reading Boxitects to them and then just having them build with a partner, sharing the same box of
supplies as a soft intro to partners and teamwork.
Another variation on a lesson plan for a substitute, students are tasked with designing the setting of a famous
fairy tale. I generally offer 3-4 choices and try to pick at least one well-known fairy tale.

Build a Lego bridge that goes over the water (a 1/4 sheet of blue construction paper) that is wide enough for a
little piggy to walk over and tall enough for the piggy to walk under.
Design a Lego car that will roll independently down the 8-foot ramp.

Design a Lego car and then attach a sail to it. See if it can travel 8 feet using only the power of the fan. I put out
some great sail materials and some lousy choices: coffee filters, tissues, tinfoil, construction paper, copy paper,
card stock, and paper plates cut in half.

I've printed and laminated several free Lego Challenge Cards that I found online and often use these as a sub
plan. With the youngest students, I offer 4 choices while the older students get a stack of them on the table
and can go through.

Place a row of Legos down the center of each baseplate and then challenge students to build something with
symmetry, which is identical in shape and size on each side of the line.
Repeat the lesson in older grades but challenge them to build a 3D model that has at least one line of
symmetry.
Design a trap that you think will trap the leprechaun. We've never been successful, but sometimes we find a
trail of glitter the leprechaun has left behind.

This varies depending upon the materials, but I have students find 10 things in the room that a magnet sticks
to, decorate the whiteboard with magnets, have a magnet wall, glue magnets to matchbox cars and have
students try to "push" the cars without touching them, build sculptures with magnets, see which items in the
box stick to a magnet, etc.

Listen to the story, "Muncha Muncha Muncha," and then design a way to keep the bunnies out of Mr.
McGreely's garden. Have the kids explain their solutions to you because their answers are wild and not easily
interpreted by just looking.

Listen to the story, My Dream Playground, and then either sketch a playground you're like to design or build a
few pieces of playground equipment using Legos. We put these on display and include several classes' worth of
pieces.

Using only a single sheet of paper, scissors, tape or a stapler, construct the longest chain you can in 20 minutes.
I often use colored paper and give each student at the table a different color so they don't mix up their pieces.

Using keva planks, each person at the table designs two structures as part of a peaceful park or garden, and
then the table connects them with pathways. This lesson was inspired by the YouTube video "How to build an
Asian inspired garden" on the Keva Plank channel.

Listen to the story "Perfect Square" and have students create a collage using 1-4 pieces of colored paper that
they glue onto a sheet of white paper. I cut construction paper into 1/4 sheets to reduce waste for this project.

A free pbskids app about weather, friction, contraptions, shadows, etc. that is a great introduction to the iPads.
Several centers all themed around pumpkins: estimation station where you guess the pumpkin's weight,
estimation station where you guess which of three pieces of yarn would go exactly around the pumpkin's
middle, build a model to show "Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate," complete "Pick a Pumpkin" on Starfall on
a Chromebook, using a die and a glyph create a jack-o-lantern, put together a pumpkin puzzle, practice using
tools by using a mallet to pound golf tees into a pumpkin.
Listen to the story and then design a Lego broom with room for all the characters in the story.

Provide a visual scavenger hunt list of 16-20 items on a clipboard for students to go out and explore. They
should cross off items as they find them. I tie this in with thinking like a scientist by looking closely at the world
around us.

Learn about how the sun "moves" throughout the day, causing your shadow to also move. Go outside and, with
a partner, trace your partner's shadow. Outline their shoes and later color them in so that later in the
day/week they can put their feet back on the shoe outline and see how their shadow has moved.

Create a monster by gluing pattern block shape paper cut-outs onto a sheet of paper. When done, count how
many of each shape you used and put that number on your shape counting sheet.

Formulate a hypothesis about whether a small snap cube spinner or a large one will spin longer. Build one of
each and compare them three times. Add your name to the graph to show which one spun longer.

Watch the video about how snowflakes form, then build a snowflake on the table using pattern blocks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M48RfaWcWA&ab_channel=SciShowKids

After learning about how snowflakes form and how many sides they have, provide materials to design a
snowflake on the table (gemstones, popsicle sticks, cotton balls, q-tips, beads, etc.) for students to explore.
We talk about how scientists like to group items into large categories and then smaller categories, for example
living things, animals, and horses. Then I give them a collection of random items and ask them to group them
with their partner into categories that they make up. They might put things together by color, texture, shape,
size, purpose, or whatever categories they wish.

Listen to the Mystery Science mini-lesson, What is the Biggest Spider in the World? Have students pay
attention during the video to how many legs and eyes a spider has, and after the video have them build an
accurate model of a spider using any classroom building supplies.

Early literacy and math website, kind of confusing because a lot of it isn't free anymore and the games are very
short (2 minutes) but a good introduction to using a trackpad or mouse.

Build a Thanksgiving table large enough to fit all 5 cut-out pictures of food without them overlapping, standing
up, or hanging over the edge of the table. When they have that done, test them for weight using two cans of
food.
Students designed boats using tinfoil that could float and then tested their strength by placing pennies or
gemstones in them until they sank.

The three bunnies on Mr. McGreely's farm want to come in for the winter. After listening to the story, Tippy
Tippy Tippy Hide, design a way to keep the bunnies out of the house for the winter. Try to get the kids to think
creatively on this one and not just build a wall: a dog, a robot, a hutch for the bunnies, their own house, laser-
activated catapults are all acceptable answers.
Read "How to catch a turkey" and then talk about things we know about turkeys. Using that information,
design a trap that will capture the runaway turkey but not harm it.

We watch the Mystery Science video, "Why do leaves turn colors in the fall?" and then I have a bunch of leaves
for each table to observe closely with magnifying glasses. After a few minutes, I distribute black and white
print-outs of leaves that they color to match their favorite leaf and we display them on the bulletin board for
the month.
100th Day of School
24" Keva plank tower that
can support weight

3 Keva Plank Challenges

40 planks, 5 ways

Amazing Alex

Animal adaptations

Animal habitats

Apple Picker Engineering

Balance a bird

Breakout game reviewing

teamwork & taking turns
Brick towers

Building Up

Chromatography / Why
are butterflies so colorful?

Codespark

Craft stick bridges

Creature catchers

Curling

Disaster Island
Does weight affect how
far a Lego car will travel?
Elf shelf/gnome home

Engineering the slow fall

Fall Legos

Flying spiders

Free choice

Gingerbread boy bridges

Heavy hearts

Hoop Gliders

How I Met My Monster

Humpty's Wall

Icy sledding slope

If I Built a
House/School/Car

Insulation roller coasters

Keva plank - tallest tower

Keva plank sub plans

Keva planks - horizontal
force
Keva planks - something in
nature

Keva planks - vertical force

Kodable

Leaf collage

Leaf Man

Lego - design fairy tale

setting

Lego bridges - 20 rocks

Lego challenges - maitre'd

Lego hearts & groundhogs

Lego marble mazes

Lego puzzles

Lego towers w/brick

Leprechaun traps

Little Red's Basket

Market Bay

Mitten clothesline

Monster Glyph I

Monster Glyph II

My Dream Playground
Mystery Science - bridges

Mystery Science - gliders

Mystery Science - spiders

Paper airplane day

Paper Chains

Peaceful gardens

Perfect Square
Polluted Pond

Pompom pass

Pool noodle boats & rivers

Pullback motor cars

Pumpkin Jack

Pumpkin Palooza

Rescue the witch from the

cauldron / stuffy from the
pool

Room on the Broom

Rubber band cars

Silence a bell

Slowest Marble Run

Slowest Snowflake

Snap circuits/marble runs

Snow shovels

Snowflake geometry

Snowman glyph

Stop Motion - names

Thanksgiving tables

The Girl Who Never Made

Mistakes

Tinfoil Boats

Turkey Traps

What if there were no

windows? Mystery
Science

Why do leaves turn colors

in the fall?
Wrecking Ball/May the 4th
be with you

Zipline rescue

Zoom & ReZoom

Build the tallest tower possible using 100 legos multiplied by your grade level. In the 2nd grade, work in groups of
2; in the 5th grade work in groups of 5, etc. Other years I've put 100 of something in a bin and had students build
whatever they wanted with the 100 things in that bin.
Build a tower that is at least 24" inches tall and see if it can support the weight of a brick. You must build straight
up for this to work, so look at all 4 sides as you're building.

Design three Keva plank structures: 1) a structure that moves a ping pong ball 12 inches horizontally using only
gravity, 2) a structure that makes the ping pong ball turn a corner, and 3) a structure that allows the ping pong ball
to bounce into the cup
Design the tallest tower you can using only up to 40 planks. Then design four more with the same constraints,
only each way needs to look different from the previous ways.
An engineering app that is no longer on the Apple store but on some of our older iPads at PES. Other engineering
apps include TinkerBox, Brain It On!, and

Mystery Science lesson about how birds' beaks are designed to help them with the type of food they eat. After
watching the video, "Why do birds have beaks," students completed the extension activity and used straws and
paper cups to mimic two types of beaks and pick up macaroni or dried beans but not both.

A youtube video I posted about areas around my home where I discovered unexpected wildlife during our remote
learning period. Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Animal Habitats Lesson. After the video we went outside to
observe evidence of animal habitats at PES.
Mystery Science mini-lesson, "What's the biggest apple in the world?" with a follow-up activity to engineer a
construction paper apple picker that will scoop up paper apples.

Mystery Science mini-lesson about balance with a follow-up activity of designing a bird that you can balance on
your finger as you walk around the room. The bird is made using a pipe cleaner, popsicle stick, and two washers. I
haven't been able to find the mini-lesson on MS's website lately, so another video that works to anchor the lesson
is Design Squad Nation's video on YouTube, Balance Magic.

I created a breakout game to help students practice and refine our teamwork skills and make sure they were
taking turns (4 puzzles, 4 partners). However, I built it based on a classroom I had 4 classrooms ago and I'm not
sure if the clues for where to find the next clue will still work. I believe there's a copy of the game in my filing
cabinet at PES.
Using Legos, build a tower that is at least 10" tall and can support the weight of a brick. Again, we're focusing on
building straight up and not out to the side which causes a point of weakness in the structure.
Listen to the story, Building Up, and design something that was inspired by a page in the book. We use this in
kindergarten and it's probably a little young for 1st and 2nd graders.

Watch the Mystery Science mini-lesson, Why are butterflies so colorful? Then color two coffee filters using
markers and spritz them with water. When they're dry, use them as the wings for a colorful butterfly and either
use a clothespin or half a pipe cleaner as the body of the butterfly.
Great free coding app where you can set up multiple classes and have students learn to code and design their own
games.

Using craft sticks, clothespins, paper binders, and blocks or snap cubes students build three different bridges
across the river (blue bulletin board paper running down the length of each teable) and test each for strength.
They are given a data sheet to track how many gemstones each bridge style holds (small paper cups and
gemstones from the floral section of Dollar Tree work well). They need to build a bridge shaped like the letters I,
X, and Y. The bridge fails when it touches the water or the data sheet cannot be smoothly slid under the bridge
where the weights are.

This activity is a little tricky for 1st and 2nd graders and might be better for 3rd or 4th. Using pipe cleaners and
string, design a web that will catch the creatures as the teacher drops them onto the web. Students lift up their
creature catcher to see how many were actually caught. In the past, I've used plastic ring spiders from the dollar
store for this activity. It's based on a lesson by Kerry Tracy on youtube: Halloween STEM Challenge, Creature
Catchers.

During the Olympics I create a curling rink using Powerpoint and print it out on the largest paper our color printer
will take and then laminate it. Students watch a video about the physics of curling, Science Friction, All About the
Physics of Curling. Then we try our hand at it using pennies I've put stickers on to make them different colors for
the two members of each team. The scoring gets tricky for these kids, so I tell them the winner for our class
version is whoever's penny is closest to the center of the target.

Using Legos, have students design an island for 10 minutes. Then draw some disaster cards out of a bucket and
tell them they now must design for that impending disaster. The disaster cards are printable on The Lego
Librarian's website.
Students design a Lego car that will roll down the 8-foot ramp we have in the classroom (don't have a ramp?
Foamboard works as well!). They measure how far the car rolls by placing a post-it on the floor where the car
stops. Then they add weights to the car and test again, moving the post-it if it travels farther. They test one last
time, doubling the amount of weight on the previous car. We have data sheets and they circle which car went the
farthest (no weights, x-weights, or 2x weights) and then explain in writing why they think that one rolled the
farthest. At the end of class we come together as a group and compare how many of each type of car went the
farthest and have members from those groups share their thinking about why it rolled the farthest.
Design a shelf or home that will keep an elf or gnome at least 24" off the work surface.

Create several different paper leaves using paper and bobby pins and test them to see which will fall the slowest. I
have a video explaining this lesson: Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Engineering the Slow Fall.
This is a sub plan. Using Legos design something you would see in the fall (Halloween, football, Thanksgiving,
soccer, parades, leaves turning color, etc.).

Using 5 things from makerspace, design a catapult that will fling a plastic spider at least 10 feet across the room.
When students are done with the daily challenge they can choose from any of our building materials on the
shelves and free build.

Design a bridge over the shoebox tote that will allow your gingerbread boy to cross the long way without falling
into the river. You may use 5 strips of construction paper plus five items from makerspace. Your creation must
support the weight of two 1" blocks of wood.

Print copies of large paper hearts for each pair of students (use legal-sized paper). Have students fill the heart in
with pattern block pieces. Each piece is worth 1 unit of weight. The idea is to get students to understand that six
triangles fit into the same space of one hexagon and would be worth more.
Design two different hoop gliders designs to see which one flies the farthest. Honestly, this lesson flopped the last
time it was tried with 2nd graders. It might've been the quality of the straws, I don't know.

Read the story, How I Met My Monster, and then have students sketch a monster that would be scary enough to
keep them in bed at night. Then use building materials in the classroom to build a 3D model of your monster.
Read the story, After the Fall, about how Humpty developed a fear of heights after falling off the wall. Challenge
students to create a wall that Humpty (an Easter egg) cannot fall off from and test their creations with 10 seconds
of a hair dryer blowing on them.
Using Keva Planks, design a slope that will roll a ball from one end of the table to the other. Bonus points if you
have a ramp/jump in it.

Read one of these stories by Chris Van Dusen and then have the kids build their own designer house, school, or
car. If they team up, have each person bring a different material and incorporate it into what they're building.

Get a bunch of insulation tubes from Home Depot and a bag of marbles from Dollar Tree in the floral section
(they're slightly smaller than regular marbles and work better for this). Cut the insulation tubes in half and have
students design "roller coasters" to explore potential and kinetic energy. They can also tape tubes together to
make longer runs or just have teammates holding the ends together. Have different challenges like the longest roll
across the floor, or doing a loop-de-loop, or having a hill in the middle of the run.

Build the tallest tower you can using a bin of Keva Planks. At first, don't talk to students about how you can lay
them flat, or on their sides, or on their ends. Let them build for 10-15 minutes and then start building at a table
with them on their sides and later on their ends to demonstrate different ways of doing it.

An easy sub plan is to have students complete two of several challenges with the planks, for example: build a Keva
plank run that will roll the ball the length of your body, design a Keva plank contraption that will drop the ball
onto the table and have it roll off the table and into your shoe, build a Keva plank run the length of the table that
turns the marble in a different direction, etc.

Build a Keva plank tower at least 24" tall that can withstand the force of my fan blowing on it for 10 seconds.

Build something you would find in nature using the Keva planks.

Build a Keva plank tower at least 24" tall that can support the weight of a brick.
Coding app that I typically start in second grade. This used to be a great app, and while they're leaving it free for
teachers, it's more obvious that there is paid content we don't have access to, which makes the flow of play a bit
confusing.
Collect fall leaves and do a leaf rubbing. Watch a video such as the Sci Show Kids, Why do leaves turn colors in the
fall.
Collect fall leaves before class and have students arrange them on a piece of construction paper to make a person.
Photograph them and put them on display in the room.

Another sub plan during a year of COVID quarantining: design a fairy tale setting using Legos for a fairy tale such as
Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel, etc. This helps if it's done during the same timeframe or
shortly after the library teaches about fairy tales.

Design a bridge using Legos that crosses over but doesn't touch the water (I cut blue bulletin board paper into
about 12" wide rivers that run down the length of each table). Test its strength with small rocks with a goal of
supporting the weight of 20 rocks.

Pick one of the following and build it using Legos: zombie apocalypse, fairy tale castle, or an animal. Give students
25-30 minutes to build before sharing. Share using the maitre'd approach when you ask students to meet in in a
group of (2 or 3, your pick) and have each person explain their creation. Then they move on and form another
group and explain and continue until it's time to pick up.
During the second week of February have students design a heart or a groundhog to put on display in the
classroom.
I have a video of this that explains it better than I can write here: Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Lego
Marble Mazes.

This lesson plan is located at https://frugalfun4boys.com/lego-brain-puzzles/. I ask students to make a challenging

puzzle by making at least 3 different letter shapes (C, E, F, H, I, L, S, T, U). Older students get larger grids. Make
sure they understand that the puzzle pieces should not have to come apart and snap together when you're
assembling the finished puzzle. I always have a kid or three who makes that mistake. When they're done, they
have you test it to make sure it works and then leave it at their seat as they go and try others' puzzles.
Design a Lego tower 10-12" tall that can then support the weight of a brick. If it breaks, look at where it broke and
assess why there is a weakness there and then start over.
Using cereal boxes and construction paper, build Leprechaun traps to leave out over St. Patrick's Day. We haven't
caught one yet, but they often leave a trail of green or gold glitter behind to let us know they were there. How to
Catch a Leprechaun pairs nicely with this activity.

Read the Epic! Story, Super Red Riding Hood, and then challenge students to build a basket that can carry 10 rocks
around the classroom when carried by the handle. Students are limited to 2 sheets of paper, tape, and scissors for
each design attempt. I have this as a read-aloud on my YouTube channel as well.

Great app for grades 1-3 learning about using money. Market Bay is free for teachers, but you have to set up your
classes and go around to every single iPad and log students into their class's account. You'll need a separate email
address for each account, so let classroom teachers know you'll set it up but under their email addresses. And I
choose the same password for every class just to make it easier. Students buy and sell items to decorate their
bedrooms with, working with dollars and coins. As they play it unlocks more areas to keep it interesting.
This is a Teachers Pay Teachers lesson plan in which students use paper, yarn, and string to create a clothesline
that will support the weight of a few paper mittens taped to it.

Using a self-created glyph, students choose one of two traits to design two monsters. The traits they're choosing
are body shape (triangle or oval), eyes (blue googly eyes or purple with lashes), mouth (3 teeth or 2 vampire
teeth), hair (spiky or curly), arms (2 or 4), legs (short or long), fur (polka dotted or striped), and fur color (any color
from the rainbow). Week 1 students draw two monsters on the page and you save it.

Week 2, take out the pictures of those two monsters that each student created. Talk about how traits are
inherited from parents and have them create a child that could be the child of each of these two monsters.
Explain dominant traits, that if both parents have the same hair color, there are higher odds that the child will
have that same hair color; and recessive traits, that if one parent has stripes and the other has polka dots, the
child will have one or the other but not both. Put the parents and children posters up on display but mixed up and
see if kids can match which child goes with which set of parents as an added challenge.

Read the story, My Dream Playground, about the Kaboom! Program that brings playgrounds into inner cities. Have
the students brainstorm what they might wish for if someone built a new playground in our neighborhood, and
then have them build two things for that playground. I like to have students put their pieces on display until we
start running out of Legos so that other classes can add to them, making it a very large and elaborate playground.
Mystery Science used to have a lesson about the strength of bridges called What makes bridges so strong? As part
of their 2nd grade curriculum, but they moved it into the 3rd grade curriculum. It has a follow-up activity that
involves making paper bridges, but when they moved it into 3rd grade, I came up with my own lesson on paper
bridges: Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Paper Bridges STEM Challenge.
Mystery Science mini-lesson with a Valentine's Day theme, but I like to use it in spring so we can go outside and
test our gliders: Why can't airplanes fly into space?

Mystery Science mini-lesson: What is the biggest spider in the world? Have students pay close attention to
characteristics of spiders: how many legs and eyes. Then have them create a 3D model of a spider using classroom
building materials that shows those features.

One year we had a 2nd grade indoor field day and the STEM rotation was building paper airplanes. I had three
tables set up with instructions for three different types of airplanes: glider, copter, and traditional airplane.

Design the longest paper chain using a single sheet of paper, tape, scissors, and staples. I like to give each student
at the table their own color paper so that everyone knows whose is whose. Sometimes I do this lesson and have
them cut strips the narrow way on the paper vs. the long way and see which is different. Other times we might
have a challenge of, "If we put all our chains end to end, how far down the hallway can we go?"

This lesson came from the Keva Plank YouTube channel with the video called How to build a peaceful garden with
Keva planks. I don't show the students the video, but just a few screenshots of it. There are also peaceful Asian
garden videos you can run while students are building that are set to music. Each student at the table is
responsible for building two structures and then connecting what they've built to their neighbor's with walking
paths.
We listen to the story Perfect Square and then design something using just 2 or 3 pieces of construction paper
that are pre-cut into 1/4 sheet sizes which are then glued down onto a sheet of copy paper.
This is a beginning of year team building exercise. Pour a bin of pattern blocks onto each table and explain to
students that their table is a pond that has become polluted with some toxic water. But there are valuable things
in the water, diamonds and gold, that need to be removed. However the other pattern blocks are toxic and
shouldn't be touched. Their job is to build a device using Legos that will allow them to remove the valuable items
without touching the toxic ones. Give them 10 minutes to build a device and then time them for two minutes to
see how many they can remove. I tried to give a penalty that if you touch a toxic item you have to put back two of
your valuable items, but in first and second grade there are kids who can't follow a penalty rule. It did work with
older students. After round 1 give them a few minutes to redesign their tool and launch into round 2, and repeat
the process for round 3.

Another beginning of year team building exercise. Give each student a paper towel tube cut in half the long way
and tell them that today's challenge will be to work together to move a pompom from one person to the next.
Starting with table groups, students try to pass the pompom through everyone's tube twice. When you have the
pompom, you CANNOT MOVE YOUR FEET. Once you pass the pompom onto the next person, you move to the end
of the line to receive it again. Practice this for a few minutes and then double the size of the teams and challenge
them to pass the pompom from one end of the classroom to the other. This is not a whole-class activity and takes
about 15 minutes.

For field day one year we went to the beach and rotated through different stations. The STEM station was to make
rivers using tinfoil, and then students could build a boat using pre-cut pool noodle circles, skewers, and foam sails
(foam craft pieces from Dollar Tree cut in half). This was a 20-minute station and we did discover that because of
the wind we had to collect rocks to weigh the tinfoil rivers down. Younger students (PreK & K) didn't build rivers
but built boats and had fun hauling water in jugs to each river.

In our Lego kits we have about 20 pullback motors. Before class I put specific pieces into ziploc baggies for each
pair to build a very basic stock car. Then they can exchange different tires for each time they test their car. One
year I took them outside and had them try three different sizes of tires on the bus path to see whether the larger
tires or smaller tires worked best. Another year I had them just try to get their car to go from one end of the room
to the other (if it could they got to test it in the hall and see if it could reach a certain spot away from our
classroom door).
We listen to the story Pumpkin Jack and then put a pumpkin pie pumpkin in an Utz Cheez balls container for the
winter and watch him rot. You're supposed to add a handful of soil every few weeks and Pumpkin Jack will sprout
new pumpkin plants. It didn't work for us, but there were extenuating circumstances. Also, when listening to the
story I try to get students to find the two mistakes because the science is a little sketchy in this book!

One year I set up several centers around the room related to pumpkins: estimation station (pick up the pumpkin
and write how many pounds you think it weighs on the whiteboard), estimation station 2 (choose which of three
lengths of string you think will go exactly around the pumpkin's middle, recreate 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a
Gate, put together a pumpkin puzzle, color in a paper pumpkin by rolling the dice and using a jack-o-lantern glyph,
play a game which had a paper with pumpkins in a triangle and you had to cross out an odd number of pumpkins
in a single row for each turn with the goal of being the last person to cross out a pumpkin, and practice using tools
by using a mallet and punching holes in a pumpkin using golf tees.

Design something using no more than 5 items from makerspace in each turn that will allow you to retrieve a
cotton ball from the bucket of water (or trick or treat pail). At one school we could talk about Halloween so it was
a witch and a cauldron; at the other school we couldn't so it was a stuffy that fell into the pool.
Read the story, Room on the Broom, and then use Legos to design a broom that has seats for all the characters in
the book. Bonus points if you also build the characters.

There are a few videos about building a rubber band car on YouTube you can show the class, but the basic idea is
that you have to attach a rubber band to an axle and then when you roll the car backward, it winds up and can
release that energy on its run forward. We did this once and then I dropped it in favor of the pullback motor cars
because the elastics kept breaking.

Put a variety of materials on the table (string, pompoms, shoe laces, shredded paper) and give students the task
of silencing a jingle bell. They have to make it so you cannot hear a single bit of sound when you shake it. This is
harder than it seems.

Using the classroom marble run kits, design the slowest marble run you can. Time how long it takes the marble to
go from the start to the end. Post best times for each group on the board so they know what they're working to
beat.
Introduce the concept of air resistance and then challenge students to build a snowflake using a coffee filter and
scissors that takes the longest time to drop from standing on a chair holding your arms above your head to hitting
the floor. Use the iPads to have a partner time it. Then build what you think will be the fastest snowflake and test
it. Have students drop the coffee filters like an upside down bowl to prevent them from folding on the way down.

This is a two-class project because I divide the class in half and have half work on challenges #1, #2, and #3 on the
snap circuits while the other half of the class designs two marble runs using Lego Jr. and pool noodles cut in half
and cut to different lengths. The two challenges are the longest run they can, and a run that changes the direction
of the marble onto a second path. The second class they switch parts so they get turns at both activities.

This lesson comes from Kerry Tracy's Winter STEM Challenge: Snow Scoop video on youtube. Students use
makerspace items to build a snow shovel that can remove mini marshmallows from a tray in a limited amount of
time.
We watch the SciShow Kids video, Where do snowflakes come from? and then build models of snowflakes using
pattern blocks.

One year I took students outside to build snowmen using a glyph that would tell me things about them, such as 1)
If you are an odd number of years old, build a snowman with 3 snowballs. If you are an even number of years old,
build a snowman with 2 snowballs. 2) If you have green or blue eyes, make two eyes for your snowman. If you
have brown or hazel eyes, make 3 eyes. 3) If you have pets, make a scarf for your snowman. If you don't have
pets, make a hat. 4) If you have 2 or less siblings, make a snowman with 2 arms. If you have 3 or more siblings,
make a snowman with 2 arms and 2 legs. 5) If you like to play in the snow, give your snowman a smiley face. If you
would rather be inside, give him a frown. You really have to have ideal snow for this and we had rather dry snow
the day we tried it.

Using the Stop Motion app on the iPads, create a Stop Motion movie in which you build your name using Legos
and then have something come along and destroy your name (shark attack, explosion, horses eating it, etc. using
our plastic figurines.
Using Keva planks, design a Thanksgiving table that is large enough that all the printed food items (in the filing
cabinet) can be laid down horizontally without overlapping each other or the edge of the table, and that is strong
enough to support the weight of two cans of veggies. You can only have 3 planks that touch the table. You may
not have double-decker or bunkbed style tables, and you may not have a slanted table. It needs to have a flat
surface.

Read the story, The girl who never made mistakes to introduce the idea that it's okay and expected to fail in STEM.
Failure is the point where you recognize the weakness in what you made and use that knowledge to build better
the next time. When STEM was originally created, the instructions given to the STEM teachers were to come up
with projects that students would have to fail at once or twice before having success so that students learn this
skill and perseverence. Then I give students a handout with 16 black circles and challenge them to use their
creativity like the character in the story did to find 16 different ways to make those circles into something else by
coloring them.

Design a boat using a sheet of tinfoil and then test it with gemstones to see how many it can support before it
sinks. Have lots of extra tinfoil squares (but not the perforated kind from Sam's Club!!) so they can test several
different models. SciShow Kids has a video called Why do ships float? that helps explain some of the concepts.

Read the story How to catch a turkey and brainstorm what we know about turkeys. Then have students use what
they know about turkeys to build a humane trap for them if we had a runaway turkey in our school. Go on a
museum walk to see how each person interpreted this challenge and have them explain their solution.

Mystery Science lesson about transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque materials (first grade unit). I have
teachers save for me that 12" of throwaway lamination at the beginning of each project and cut these into paper-
sized pieces. Students then do the extension activity of designing a flower (or whatever they want; I give them a
lot of choice in this) by gluing cut-up pieces of tissue paper and making a collage that we can hang in the windows
or they can take home.

We watch the SciShow kids video, Why do leaves turn colors in the fall? And then we spend some time observing
leaves that I collected and brought into the classroom with magnifying glasses (and microscopes if you want to).
Students are then given a paper outline of a leaf and are asked to color it in as accurately as they can to match
their favorite leaf on the table. We put these up on the bulletin board for a month.
Students are given a baseplate and Legos and asked to build a tower at least 10" tall and a way to have the force
of a ball absorbed or deflected so that their tower won't get knocked down. If I have a minifig I like to put on on
top of their tower to see if he's still standing. Using the 8' ramp, I line the sides with shoebox-sized totes to keep
the ball rolling straight. Students can place their baseplate in the line of the ball but angle it however they want.
Three balls are rolled down: a beach ball, a nerf ball, and a basketball (each increasing in force). They have to keep
rebuilding until their tower isn't damaged. However, it is okay if something they built to deflect or absorb the
force is damaged (like a fence or ramp) as long as the tower itself is still standing.

Students design conveyances using paper, staples, straw, yarn, and paperclips that can fit a stuffy and some
weights. They then clip into the zipline using a caribbeaner and see how far it travels with no weights, then with
three weights, and finally with six weights to see how weight affects the distance it will travel. The weights are a
few ounces each and can be small stones. Students need to design their vehicles so that the weights won't fall
out. The stuffies we use are small, lightweight ones about the size of a beanie baby, but without the weight (again,
from Dollar Tree).

These are two books that have been pulled apart and the pages laminated. The goal is to work together as a group
to put the pages of one book back in order when only the first two and last page have been labeled. Each picture
zooms out slightly from the previous picture and you have to look closely to figure out the order. This is a good
teamwork activity because you have to be willing to lay out all the pictures and not hold/hide them so that
everyone can see everything. Otherwise it takes a long time to put the pieces together. I wouldn't use more than
4 kids in a group for this task, although older classes could go as large as half a class trying it.
 Using two sheets of paper that are 8.5x11 and some blocks for the end piers, design a 12" long bridge and
test it with gemstones to see how much weight it can hold. Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, 12 Inch
12" paper bridges Bridge Challenge
Using K'nex, design a 3-wheeled car that, when rolled down the 8' ramp, will travel to the other side of the
3-wheeled cars classroom.

Study how toys like Legos and K'nex have been used to design adaptive equipment for animals. Bring in
several stuffed animals and have students design adaptive equipment for a dog or cat that can't use either
Adaptive equipment its front or back legs.

Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Apple Picker STEM Engineering. I wouldn't go higher than 3rd grade
with this lesson because it may be too easy. Students design a paper tool to reach apples (crumpled balls of
Apple picker engineering paper) on an adjacent desk to "pick" them.

Using Legos, students design a car that can be powered by a balloon. We tried this once and it wasn't great
because after a few attempts, the balloon didn't have enough force to really move the car anymore. I would
Balloon powered cars favor pullback motor cars over balloon powered cars.

Cargo airplanes Design a paper airplane that can carry cargo (coins). Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Cargo Planes.
Chain reactions Mystery Science 4th grade lesson: Can you build a chain reaction machine?
Chair Lift Challenge at Try Engineering: https://tryengineering.org/teacher/chair-lift-challenge/ Students
Chair lift challenge design a chair lift that can move a weight successfully to the top of the mountain.

We start digital programming at this site with a choice of three favorite activities: Flappy Bird (easiest),
Dance Party, or Minecraft programming. After the first class, students can choose any activity on the Hour
Code.org of Code page: https://code.org/hourofcode/overview

Codespark/Market Bay Codespark is popular from 1st-5th grade. Market Bay focuses on math skills and is best for 1st-3rd grade.

This activity has students focus on the costs of mining. On a budget, students decide which mining
implements they wish to purchase to remove as many chocolate chips from a Chips Ahoy cookie in a limited
Cookie mining time as they can. https://www.earthsciweek.org/classroom-activities/cookie-mining
Teachers Pay Teachers forensic science and logic activity to help figure out who stole the costume just
Costume CSI before a school costume contest. Halloween Crime Scene Investigation by Snowdust Creations
 At PES the whole school studied a different country or region and each class made models that went along
Country study with their country using Legos.

Using The Lego Librarians lesson plan, students design an island for about 10-15 minutes. Then they draw a
couple disasters from a bowl and choose one to incorporate into their design. Printable disaster sheet is
Disaster Island available at https://legolibrarian.com/2017/03/11/lego-challenge-disaster-island/

Students design a lego car and measure how far down the hallway it will roll when released at the top of
the 8' ramp. Track that number, then add weights to a the vehicle and test it again. Track that number and
double the amount of weights in the previous test and test it again. Have students predict which they think
Does weight affect how will go the farthest before testing (tie into the scientific process) and then come together at the end of class
far a car will travel? to discuss what happened and if it differed from their hypothesis.
Design a Lego car that can transport a raw egg (in a ziploc!) down the ramp and across the room safely. If
Egg transport car the egg falls out, even if it doesn't break, it is not a successful run.
Consider drag and test several different leaf designs and see if you can slow down the speed of a falling
Engineering the slow fall construction paper leaf. Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Engineering the Slow Fall

Kerry Tracy, Pandemic STEM Challenge Makeover: Floating Flowers. Students create a tissue paper flower
and then use makerspace items to come up with a way that the flower can float without getting wet for a
Floating flowers certain length of time.

An unplugged lesson at code.org, students practice computational skills by looking at a partially-played

game with no rules and figure out the patterns to the way the game is played. They then fill in the blanks to
create a complete set of rules and play the game they created.
Game with no rules https://code.org/curriculum/course3/1/Teacher
Grow a crystal Using a borax and water solution, students grow a crystal on a pipe cleaner.
Halloween centers
Hess truck loader We received a dozen Hess Truck educational toys in 2017. The printable curriculum for that year can be
challenge found at https://hesstoytruck.com/stem/ if you scroll down to the 2017 truck.
Hess truck simple We received a dozen Hess Truck educational toys in 2017. The printable curriculum for that year can be
machine identification found at https://hesstoytruck.com/stem/ if you scroll down to the 2017 truck.
 Class #2 List the simple machines on the board. Go over the different booby traps that Kevin set and identify
which simple machines each used. Then have the students design 5 booby traps on their blueprints that use
Home Alone battleplan and identify at least 3 different simple machines. Add color and label like Kevin did.

Class #1 students sketch a blueprint floorplan of their houses. We watch a short clip from Home Alone on
youtube (Home Alone (1990) - 'Setting the Trap' scene) to see the booby traps Kevin set up as preparation
Home Alone blueprint for the next lesson.
We have a class set of Hot Wheels tracks and cars that go along with Mattel's Speedometry STEM
Hot Wheels lesson 1 & 2 Curriculum, available at https://smv.org/documents/216/Hot_Wheels_educator_guide.pdf

Using Keva Planks and blocks, design a slope that will create enough energy to allow a ball to travel down
the slope, over a ramp, and continue the length of the table. The ball must remain on the Keva planks track
Icy Sledding Slopes the entire length of the table.
Listen to the read-aloud on youtube and then have students build a dream home. Students work in groups
If I Built a House of 1-4 but have each student joining a group bring along a different building material.

This is an online internet safety/digital citizenship game in 4 parts at the Be Internet Awesome website:
https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland This site is the teacher side with
Interland supplemental lesson plans: https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/educators

Digital citizenship was mostly taken over by the librarian after computer classes became STEM classes in the
district, but it never hurts to talk a little when introducing new technology about the responsibilities that
come along with using technology and the expectations of using devices in school. Common Sense Media
has an entire curriculum on digital citizenship for K-5 students at
Internet Safety https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/curriculum

Great website for reviewing concepts in a gameshow-like way. You can create your own Kahoot for the
students, use another teacher's Kahoot, or make a copy of another teacher's Kahoot and modify a few
Kahoot questions to make it more pertinent to what you're studying in class.

Using Keva planks, design a contraption that will move the ping pong ball 12 inches using only gravity. Then
design a contraption that will make the ping pong ball turn a corner. Make a third contraption that will
Keva planks - ping pong cause the ball to bounce once and land in a cup. Then design one final contraption that will do all three
ball challenges things.
 Build the tallest tower you can using up to 40 Keva planks and measure its height. Repeat five more times,
Keva planks 40x6 each time building a different way with the planks so that each tower looks different.

This is the go-to sub plan. There are Lego challenge cards for seasons, holidays, or just in general that can be
used to make an open-ended building activity. For 3rd-5th grade I like to pick a few crazy topics they might
get very engaged in, such as a zombie apocalypse, and one or two more straight-forward topics like a
Lego challenges medieval castle.

One year we participated in an online fundraiser. For each Lego ornament that a student built and a photo
was uploaded to the site, a donation of Legos was made for a family in need. I believe it has been continued
each year, but the phrase you want to search in early November for that year's challenge is "Lego Build to
Lego ornaments Give."

Design a working catapult that can catapult a pompom 10 feet across the room. We typically release these
all at the same time each time we run a test to make sure if any pieces go flying off the catapults by
Lego pompom catapults accident that everyone is behind the line and wearing goggles.

Construct a tiny house using a single baseplate. Make sure you have at least the basic rooms: kitchen, living
room, bedroom, and bathroom. I had students calculate the area of each room as well for a little math
Lego tiny houses practice.

A game influenced by a student that became a class lesson. Borrow a set of cardboard testing barriers from
a classroom teacher and set them up so that students sitting across from each other can't see one another's
workspace. Then have partners sit across from each other and create a project using between 5 and 10
pattern blocks. When both are done with their creations, they take turns describing what they built to their
partner as their partner tries to recreate the same project. When both have had a turn to hear and build the
Let me tell you what I other's project, they remove the barrier and see how close they came. Repeat several times. This lesson is
built all about effective communication.
Using a dozen popsicle sticks, students in teams try to use all the popsicle sticks to make a specific number
Let's make squares of squares. https://mathequalslove.net/lets-make-squares/

Computational Thinking with Monsters (an unplugged coding activity at code.org). Students learn the four
stages of computational thinking (decompose, patterns, abstraction, and algorithms) to then write an
algorithm about a monster that another student can then sketch.
Monster coding https://studio.code.org/unplugged/unplug2.pdf
 Listen to the story My Dream Playground and then try to build a working piece of playground equipment
My Dream Playground using Legos to create a Lego playground.

Watch Why do our skeletons have so many bones? and then have students create a model of their
skeletons using q-tips, glue, and black paper. This one is fun to do leading up to Halloween and then put
Mystery Science - them on display in the hallway. I leave a picture of a human skeleton up on the projector for students to
Skeletons reference as they're building.

One year a parent gave me 42 identical sized boxes from a Girl Scout Cookie sale, so I had all the 3rd-5th
graders design a landing surface for an egg that would prevent it from breaking. They were allowed to bring
items from home or use what I had on hand in the classroom (newspaper, bubble wrap, toilet paper, scrap
paper, etc.). The day we tested, the wind blew some eggs off course so it's good to have something to roll
Naked egg drop the egg down to get it to land in the right spot such as a wide PVC pipe.

Students search through the woods adjacent to the playground to complete a worksheet that asks them to
sketch or list what they see that shows evidence of: animal habitats, erosion, changing seasons,
Nature scavenger hunt decomposition, wildlife, drought, pollination, and insects who left their mark behind.

Students use Legos to design a bobsled that can hold all the passengers (a bottle of Elmer's glue). The top
has to be partially open just like a regular bobsled and the glue can't fall out. We use foamboard placed at
an angle to create the bobsled test. The bobsled has to make it to the bottom without losing the bottle of
Olympic Bobsled Trials glue, flipping on its side, going backward or sideways, etc.

During the Olympics we used the Hot Wheels Speedometry sets and makerspace items to build skiers and
attach them to a Hot Wheel car and launch them from the ski jump. While sticking the landing is a goal, it
often isn't achieved so there were prize catgories for the longest jump that stuck the landing as well as the
Olympic Ski Jump ones that landed on their sides or didn't even make it off the jump.
Watch Science Max's Science Max | FULL EPISODE | States Of Matter | Season 1 on youtube and then have
Oobleck students create oobleck samples to take home.

Have students collect small twigs from the forest and provide them with yarn to create rafts. Then have
them test their rafts in buckets of water and see how many weights each can hold. What do they notice
Oregon Trail rafts about what makes a successful raft?
 Watch Mystery Science's What Makes Bridges so Strong? And then complete the extension activity that has
students build paper bridges. Check with the 3rd grade teacher to make sure they're not doing this lesson
because it's a part of their unit. If they are, show Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Paper Bridges STEM
Paper bridges Challenge. Same concepts without using Mystery Science.
Paper catapult Engineering with Paper lesson that used to be free but now I can't locate it online.
There are materials to make many more paper circuits to the left of the sink.
Paper circuit valentines https://leftbraincraftbrain.com/light-circuit-valentines/
Paper parachutes Engineering with Paper lesson that used to be free but now I can't locate it online.

Students first run tests to determine whether a paper cylinder, rectangular prism, or triangular prism
supports the most weight by placing encyclopedias on it until it crushes. Then, using four sheets of paper,
they use what they feel is the strongest shape to make a platform which is then tested with encyclopedias
(spoiler: it can often hold the entire set of encyclopedias so we have to have a common testing area that
people go to so they can use them all). There's a video lesson for this that is mainly for teachers: Elementary
Paper platform towers STEM with Ms. Crosman, STEM Paper Bridges - Weight Test - Video Lesson Plan.

Show students some clips of the video Make Alongs // How to build a peaceful garden with Keva Planks on
the Keva Planks youtube channel. Then have them work together as a table to build a peaceful garden with
each person designing two structures and then connecting their structures with pathways. The Keva Plank
Peaceful gardens channel also has some other great building idea videos as well.

Have students go outside (natural lighting is better with iPads) and take pictures using the camera on the
iPad and then import them into Pic Collage. This is useful for a project for parents around Mothers and
Fathers Day, or as an end-of-year project to take home photos of their friends. Students airdrop their
projects to the teacher so that they can be printed because our printers can't print things directly from the
Pic Collage - photo shoot iPads.

Show the Design Squad Global video What are Simple Machines? Ask the students where they've seen
simple machines in the classroom and around the school. After several answers, have them take pictures of
each type of simple machine they can find either in the classroom or on the playground and then import
Pic Collage - simple them into a Pic Collage and label the type of simple machine. It's helpful to give them a list of simple
machines machines with a sketch of each for this lesson.
 Show Mark Rober's video Easy Pinewood Derby Car Wins Using Science and then have students use some of
the principles in the video to design a car they think will roll the farthest down the ramp. I'd love to actually
Pinewood Derby Physics do this with pinewood derby cars some day but we lack the woodworking ability right now.

This lesson is all about using the PLANNING stage of the Engineering Design Process (Ask, Imagine, Plan,
Create, Test, Revise). Give pairs of students some sketch paper and have them design a popsicle stick table
using tape and popsicle sticks that they think will hold the most weight. Then only give them the materials
they have sketched in their plan and see if they can build it. If they omitted parts or estimated or only
sketched a 2D model vs. a 3D model, they have to start over and sketch it correctly again before getting
new materials. When they have built it, put a small piece of foamboard or cardboard on top of it and a
plastic basket for them to add weights. When the table collapses, use the gram scale to weigh how much
Popsicle stick tables weight it held.
Design a car with a pullback motor that can travel the length of the classroom. All the pullback motors are
Pullback cars at MSS so they will need to be brought over for this lesson.

Design a Lego chariot that can safely carry a pumpkin the farthest distance. I have been told that the
"pumpkins" are actually gourds, but I'm not renaming the lesson. They're cute, little white pumpkins you'd
Pumpkin chariot races put on your table for decoration at Thanksgiving.

A Teachers Pay Teachers lesson called Fairy Tale STEM (Rapunzel) Pulley Challenge. Students use Legos to
build a tower x-bricks tall and then fashion an pulley at the top so that Rapunzel doesn't have to use her
Rapunzel's pulley hair anymore. The pulleys can be made from any of the circular technic pieces (wheel hubs, gears, etc.).
challenge Provide string and a paper cup with gemstones as the load to test the pulley's effectiveness.

Design a Robowheel using the Design Squad Global video, Robo-Wheel, Design Squad. A robowheel is made
of two paper plate bowls that are connected together at the rims to make a wheel. A loop of yarn is strung
through them that can be wound up to create potential energy, then pulled and released to create kinetic
Robowheels energy.
 Using foam insulation for water pipes, design roller coasters to experiment with potential and kinetic
energy. Cut the foam insulation in half lengthwise and use marbles from Dollar Tree's floral section because
they're smaller than regular marbles and work best for this project. Create a few challenges for the students
to attempt (longest run, can you work in a loop or two, add in hills after the big drop to keep the energy
Rollercoasters (insulation) higher, etc.).

Santa wants his crew of engineers to experiment with two different sleigh designs to determine if wheels or
skis make better sleigh runners. But, the sleigh still needs to be strong, safe, and deliver the packages.
Design a sleigh chassis that you can attach both wheels and skis to. Then design how the wheels and skis
will attach. Conduct an experiment in which you test both to determine the best sleigh. Your design needs
to be an open sleigh, not a covered one. In it should be a small plastic figurine to represent Santa and four
2x2 bricks to represent the gifts which are loose and not connected to the sleigh. First, send each down the
ramp onto the tiled floor in the hallway and measure how far each travels. Then push each sleigh design
into a wall from a 2' distance. Next push the sleigh from one end of the room to the other and count how
many pushes are required. During each test, track how many gifts are lost overboard, how many times
Santa falls out, and if the sleigh breaks. Then write up your final conclusion and recommendation for Santa
about which sleigh works best and why. This lesson is based on the activity on this website:
Santa's sleigh https://leftbraincraftbrain.com/lego-santa-sleigh-stem-building-challenge/

Sam, a gummy worm, is stuck on a boat. He can't swim and the boat is capsized. To get to shore, Sam needs
to retrieve a life jacket (a lifesaver gummy) from underneath the boat so that he can float to shore. You and
your partner's job is to save Sam by retrieving the life jacket from under the boat and putting it on Sam.
Unfortunately, the only tools you can use to accomplish this task are paperclips. (2 per person). You cannot
touch Sam, the boat, or the life preserver with your bare hands. And you cannot poke either the life jacket
or Sam with the paper clip. Get the lifejacket back on Sam, flip the lifeboat over, and get Sam back into the
boat without touching anything but the paperclips.
Saving Sam https://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/saving_sam.html
 Students engineer the lightest possible package that will safely ship a chip without it cracking. Because
postage is expensive, we ship our chips through interoffice mail to another STEM class in the district after
dropping the package from arm's length to a hard floor surface 5 times to mimic actually jostling during
shipping. There are some rules about what you can use for packaging materials, maximum size, and it's
good to set a weight limit as well because the heavier the package, the more it would cost to ship.
Ship a Chip https://tryengineering.org/teacher/ship-chip/

Sir Charlie has been shipwrecked on a deserted island! Last night he got no sleep because of high winds and
lots of bugs, so he needs to build a shelter. Working in teams of two, design a shelter whose floor is no
Sir Charlie - Island Hut larger than 36 square inches, that is at least 5" tall, that has a working door, and that can withstand 10
Challenge seconds of the fan on high. From the lesson: https://tryengineering.org/teacher/desert-island-survival/

The last week of school I have 5th graders sketch their idea of what the blueprints are for the school since
they've been here for as many as 7 years. Partway through this activity I tell them how many rooms are in
the building (including closets, bathrooms, etc.) to get them to dig a little deeper and consider more. It's
okay if they talk to one another to brainstorm and share what they're missing. When done, I post what the
actual blueprints look like (the fire escape plan or a hand-drawn version) and we see how close they came.
Sketch blueprints of the Early finishers can include the outdoor play areas, parking lots, etc. Use larger paper like ledger or legal
school paper to give them more room and have extra sheets if they need to attach them.

Students in grades 1 & 2 have tried challenges #1, #2, and #3 in the manual, so they should have some
experience with building circuits. I allow any student who has completed the first three challenges to try
Snap circuits any challenge they want - except the one on the cover of the manual. That one isn't a working circuit.

Working in pairs, students build a snow shovel to scoop as many mini-marshmallows as they can in 3
scoops. This lesson is based on Kerry Tracy's video, Winter STEM Challenge: Snow Scoop. I modified it to
have the snow be mini marshmallows that I leave out to go stale for a day or two and discourage students
from eating them by letting them know we've been using them for several days and they've been all over
Snow shovels the floor. Have a spare, unopened bag on hand so kids can have 5 or 10 after they've picked up if you want.
 Using a limited amount of paper and tape, build the tallest snowman you can. Bonus points if it's free-
Snowman Stretch standing. This lesson is based on Kerry Tracy's video, Snowman Stretch.

Teamwork building activity in which a group of students tries to create a pyramid of solo cups using just
string and a single rubber band to move the cups. This site explains the rules, but I have also found
variations of this lesson where there are 6 different challenges. https://www.mostnetwork.org/wp-
Solo cup challenges content/uploads/01_Activity_Cup-Stacking.pdf

After watching a video about the Mars Rover Landing, students design a way to slow down something
dropped from their arm's length while standing on a chair. To test their drag, a mini paper cup with two
pompoms in it are attached to their space lander. This paper cup cannot be covered, nor can the aliens be
taped or tied down. With a successful landing, the pompoms don't bounce out of the cup.
Space landers https://www.vivifystem.com/blog/2015/1/14/touchdown-lander

We used PVC pipes and soda bottles to launch paper rockets we make in class and see which of three elbow
angles sends the rocket the farthest. You'll want to have lots of 2-liter soda bottles to launch the rockets
because they break easily. Also, to repump the soda bottles between trials, use a couple bike pumps with
the needle and a few caps to the bottles with holes drilled in the top so that the needle can just barely go
through it. We also discovered that a lot of air escaped through the legs of the PVC pipes even when they
were pressed against the ground, so we taped these over. Another year I would suggest buying some more
PVC caps. This is the video for assembling the PVC rockets: Elementary STEM with Ms. Crosman, Adjustable
Stomp Rockets PVC Rocket Launcher.

The third Stop Motion activity is for students to create their own Stop Motion video using the Stop Motion
app on the iPads on any engineering activity they wish to record. Their video should tell a story, not just
Stop Motion - choice show the building of something.
 The second Stop Motion activity we do is to listen to the read-aloud, I got a chicken for my birthday and
then design a roller coaster using Keva Planks. Before class I printed out copies of rollercoasters on
cardstock and stuck their school pictures to them using spare pictures the secretary has from the fall photo
shoot. Or you can take pictures of students acting like they're on a rollercoaster and print those out and
attach them. The story is about a girl who asks her grandmother for tickets to an amusement park for her
birthday. Instead her grandmother gifts her a chicken. As the story progresses, you realize that the chicken
Stop Motion - I got a is an engineer who can build anything she wants, so she gets a rollercoaster. Students create a stop motion
chicken for my birthday video of their rollercoaster car going through a rollercoaster they built.

The first Stop Motion lesson we do is a video of each student's name. Using Legos, they slowly build their
name piece by piece and then have to destroy their name somehow. Many students enjoy taking some
figurines out of the bin and have a shark come eat all the pieces or a horse move them around so they can't
Stop Motion - name be recognized as a name anymore. Others have an explosion come in and move all the pieces.

This lesson is all about using the PLANNING stage of the Engineering Design Process (Ask, Imagine, Plan,
Create, Test, Revise). Give pairs of students some sketch paper and have them design a straw table using
tape and straws that they think will hold the most weight. Then only give them the materials they have
sketched in their plan and see if they can build it. If they omitted parts or estimated or only sketched a 2D
model vs. a 3D model, they have to start over and sketch it correctly again before getting new materials.
When they have built it, put a small piece of foamboard or cardboard on top of it and a plastic basket for
Straw tables them to add weights. When the table collapses, use the gram scale to weigh how much weight it held.

Give students 10 3x5 cards and either tape or staples and challenge them to build something that will
support a brick at least 6" off the table surface. The solution is two triangles on their sides, stacked on top
of one another, but it will take them a while to get there. Replace cards as ones get damaged, but no
structure can use more than 10 cards total. Once students figure this out, challenge them to build the tallest
Support a brick with 10 tower they can that can support a brick. Have them build on the floor so that falling bricks don't hurt
3x5 cards anyone or damage the table.
 Using Keva Planks, students design a Thanksgiving table that is large enough to fit the 5 printed copies of
food (in the filing cabinet), strong enough to support two cans of food, and has only 1 plank that touches
the table. They may want to study cantilevers if they get stuck on this one. Food must lie flat on the table
and not overlap each other or the edges of the table. The table must look like a traditional table (no
Thanksgiving tables bunkbed tables, two-level tables, or slanted tables allowed).

Unplugged code.org Learn computational thinking skills through many different lessons: https://code.org/curriculum/unplugged

A forensic science unit to discover the identity of the teacher who borrowed an iPad from my desk, left an
unsigned note saying they'd bring it back, and then forgot to do so. Students work in teams to analyze
fingerprints, hair samples, conduct a black marker chromatography experiment, use math to uncover the
height of the suspect based on their footprint length, and analyze shoe prints and handwriting samples to
determine who likely has the iPad. To discourage listening in on other, the hair samples are adjustable to
Who borrowed my iPad? have two possible solutions among different groups.
Using styrofoam plates and makerspace items, students design a wind-powered sailboat that can move the
Wind-powered sailboats farthest using just the power of a box fan.

A sneaky elf has become stuck on top of the tall cabinet and needs help getting down. Using boxes, paper,
and other items from makerspace, help the elf travel safely down to the floor. You can make this activity
tricky by using cheap yarn for the zipline because it has a lot of friction, adjusting the angle of the yarn to
make it harder, and using a very lightweight elf (Dollar Tree often has lightweight elves in December).
Students usually end up having to really work at reducing the amount of friction and increasing the weight
Ziplines of their vehicle for the elf. This can also be done using Legos if you want to save makerspace items.