Sphero Golf!

Swanson Straits logo modified from Whistling Straits Golf Course.

If you have not explored Sphero Balls, today is the day to check them out! Sphero is a robotic ball that pairs with your iPad or Smartphone. Using a variety of apps, you can manipulate the ball's movement through coding, programming, or a simple finger swipe. I love Spheros because they are easy to use and content integration is totally accessible by teachers at all levels. Spheros emphasize the power of play in our classroom, something we're always looking for more of in our world!

We brought the joy of Sphero into our classroom today with another engaging collaboration day with Mike Mohammad and his BCHS students. Y'all may be tired of hearing about our days together, but we are definitely not tired of having fun together! Because of the size of our group (50 students) we decided to divide up the time together into two rotations.

ROTATION #1: SPHERO GOLF

Being a golf lover myself, this morning is definitely ranking up there as one of my favorites of the year!  Mike's students came to "Swanson Straits" a little early to turn our Library Media Center into a 10 hole mini golf course. Our 5th graders were divided into teams and spent the morning playing all 10 holes of golf with the Sphero balls. Even a few grown ups enjoyed "teeing off" and giving it a try. It is waaaay harder than it looks. The Sphero Golf app is fun because it allows you to choose your club, determine the distance needed, and then tee off. The kids didn't tell me that when I started playing, so I was using my putter for most of my hole....urrrghhh! I made up for it in future holes, don't worry! 

ROTATION #2: POLYGON NAVIGATION 

In addition to the mini golf, our students also explored the Lightning Lab app. This app allowed our 5th graders to program the Sphero ball to navigate around a series of polygons taped onto the floor of our Makerspace. As the students approached each shape, they had to use the app to program the Sphero to trace the edges of each polygon. Students quickly realized they had to adjust their team's programming, through trial and error, in order to correctly navigate the polygon path. They had to create roll combinations, including the direction, speed, and the number of seconds they wanted it to move. They had to repeat this for each edge of the polygon. This rotation was much more challenging for our students, but they practiced their perseverance and grit to work through the different polygons. 

Although we only dabbled with a few of the Sphero Apps this morning, there are ton of options out there for students. I know there are many more out there, but these looked fun to me. Feel free to comment below with other apps you've used in your classroom!Below is a list of apps your students may find enjoyable: 

• Sphero
• Sphero Lab
• Sphero Golf
• Lightning Lab
• Sphero Draw N' Drive
• Sphero Exile

What an incredibly fun morning! We can not tell you how much we value our collaboration days together. A HUGE THANK YOU to Mike and his students! No matter how much we rant and rave, they'll never realize how much we value this time together. Not only do we laugh and play and have ridiculous amounts of fun, these days spark an interest and curiosity in the minds of our 5th graders. Collaboration days introduce our students to passions they may not even realize they have. The enthusiasm in our space this morning was infectious, and none of us wanted the morning to end! We can't wait to bring our Sphero balls back out in our upcoming Geometry unit.

Until next time...

~ Kate

Makey Makey Exploration: Collaboration Day #1

It's hard to believe it is already the middle of October. It seems like just yesterday, that the incredible Mike Mohammad and I were spending an August afternoon at Panera, planning out the upcoming year's collaboration days. I think we would both agree that these days are some of the best days of the year, and we were going to head into the school year with multiple days in the books. As we booted up our computers and nibbled on our lunch, we started to talk about how the 5th grade curriculum and his physics curriculum could overlap. We shared thoughts about how the expertise of him, and his high schoolers, could support the learning going on at Swanson. Some of our units aligned beautifully...others not so much. During our short lunch time together, we were quick to realize that with or without alignment, collaboration days were going to take place- several of them!

Like usual, Mike is always on his A-game. He's ridiculously intelligent, highly creative, fun, and organized. Plus, he always makes Angela and I feel like rock stars...honestly, it's quite humbling. At the end of last week, he sent me an email reminding me of the upcoming days together and the expectations he had for his learners. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little intimidated and freaked out. I knew our students would be exploring Scratch...that didn't worry me so much, we've done coding in our learning environment, and our 5th graders are pretty savvy in that department. I can even hold my own if needs be. What worried me a bit were the boxes of Makey Makeys that I had yet to unpack. I had seen them in action before, knew the premise behind how they worked, definitely knew the kids would love programming them and exploring. The problem was I didn't have the first clue as to what to do with them. Mike, being the gracious gentleman that he is, reassured Angela and I that we would be just fine. I put my trust in him and took another sip of my morning latte.

Well, today was Collboration Day #1. As the morning bell rang, 25+ juniors and seniors walked through the doors of our classroom. Did I mention they're really big? They smiled at the 5th graders, and quickly made themselves comfortable on the couches around the room. I loved it. Every minute of it. The enthusiasm and excitement in TEAM Togetherness was contagious. Our 5th graders L.O.V.E. our collaboration days. They can't wait for them! Quite frankly, so do the grown ups! Within seconds, I quickly recognized several familiar faces...faces that took me back 7+ years in my teaching career. In the faces of those 6 foot tall giants were my former 4th and 5th graders. It's amazing to me that in those moments, names can still slip off your tongue. Kennedy! Tyler! Nick! Breanne! Regie! I can look at them, all grown up, and see them as a 10 year old. Besides the amazing interaction with my current students, seeing my former students several years later, on the cusp of their adult life, is so incredibly rewarding. I called them by name, was quick to hug (and probably embarrass) them, and then proceeded to find their school picture from way back when...not sure if they love or hate those moments, but honestly it doesn't matter.

After a quick trip down memory lane, the students were organized into groups and the "bigs" shared the Makey Makey creations they had brought from BCHS. Our 5th graders had the opportunity to check out the programming and play, knowing that in no time they, too, would be creating alongside these high school kids. Angela and I could NOT believe that we had 75+ students in our room. The room was relatively quiet. The loudest ones in the room were her and I...surprise, surprise! Our students were enthralled and hanging on every word that those big kids said. Initially they were a little shy, but in no time, they were digging in and knee deep in FUN!

After seeing what the big kids could do, we pushed their creations aside and dug into Scratch. Many of our students have used Scratch before during coding, but they loved the pointers from the high school friends and soaked up the attention. Realizing that we could offer little to no support in this department, Angela and I instantly felt the need to try to control something. You give up a lot of control when you teach in a PL environment. That is actually something we are completely okay with. Typically though, we know deep down, that if necessary we can jump in to offer help and support. This morning, that was not the case. This was one of those moments in our learning environment when our students are more knowledgeable in a subject area than we are. This is a very gratifying moment for a teacher...we usually love it. Today, though, with almost 100 kids in our room, we felt the need to control something. So, we quickly turned to the one thing we can always control- organization. We had to organize something...anything. This time, it was the Makey Makey boxes. By labeling boxes and bags, I was reassuring myself that my 5th graders would be able to crack open the contents and WOW us with their creations. Once everyone was feeling good and ready, each partnership picked up a brand spanking new Makey Makey (in it's appropriately labeled bag) to get to work.

Within seconds, the boxes were torn open, the contents were dumped, and the students were at work. Before you knew it, we heard drums drumming, cows mooing, and even a "TEAM Togetherness Rocks!" coming from all corners of the room. The kids were quickly searching for cardboard, bananas, water, gummy worms, candy, aluminum foil, cups, anything and every thing you could think of to invent something. That was the moment we exhaled and realized it was all going to be okay. Our High School Super Heroes swept in and saved the day...they read the challenge off the board and helped the kids code, program, and create. Mike, Angela, and I just sat back and took it all in. It was another amazingly wonderful morning!

In the blink of an eye, it was 11am and our high school friends had to make their way back to Brookfield Central. We sent them off with HUGE thank yous, knowing they'd be back at Swanson in less than a week so our kids could show off their creations. Our room was buzzing and our students were all smiles as they cleaned up their inventions and organized their supplies into bags. I know they are going to be super excited on Monday when they get to dive back into their Makey Makey creations.

   

 This is Zach's way of saying he's in heaven :) This video pretty much sums up how we were all feeling today! Somehow it got left out of the movie, I had to include it in the post! 

Thank you, Mike, for another incredible day of collaboration. Angela and I are so fortunate to have you in our personal learning network. You push us to think outside of the box, and you help us grow in our practice in ways you'll never realize. Can't wait to see you guys next Thursday.

Next up...Sphero Ball Mini Golf!

~ Kate

Closing Out the Year with Collaboration & Coasters

It's the last week of school! Incredibly hard for Angela and I to believe that this amazing year is over. This new group of 4th graders WOWED us again with their energy, hard work ethic, and collaborative efforts. We are already looking forward to our time together in 5th grade!

This past Monday, was our last collaborative activity with Mike Mohammad @Mo_Physics and his INCREDIBLE Brookfield Central High School AP Physics students. We are SO FORTUNATE to have such a close relationship with Mike. Without his amazing efforts, and his students' willingness to give it their all, our students would not have had the experiences they had this year. 

We could not close out the year without one more collaborative day of fun! This week's design challenge was for the groups to build a marble coaster with at least three obstacles. These obstacles could include hills, loops, and/or jumps. We had 10 groups of 4th grades, along with 3-4 high school students serving as coaches/mentors. The high schoolers outlined the challenge to the students, kept them on track, and supported our kids during the building process. Mike had reached out to me earlier last week to get the specific scientific terminology we use with our students during STEM time. This common language allowed our students to jump right in since this was the same way we had been communicating all year! 

The teachers in the space documented the event on Periscope, Twitter, and encouraged creativity. We let the groups use whatever materials we had on hand. The students grabbed foam tubing, tape, and marbles and got to work. Initially, the AP students took the lead and started the building process. In no time at all, our 4th graders stepped up and found other useful materials- funnels, xylophones, chairs, stools, Klennex boxes, Iced Tea bottles to add to the coasters. You name it, and they found a way to incorporate it into their design! As the "bigs" and "littles" interacted with each other, the building process became much more collaborative. The AP students took a bit of a backseat and let our 4th graders take control. It was so incredible to watch! ALL of the students quickly learned that there roller coasters would fail many times before ever reaching success. It was a proud teacher moment when there was no complaining, the groups just carried on with a growth mindset. They persevered, knowing the failure they felt would move them forward in their building process. In the end, ALL of the groups met the challenge and had successful coasters! 

The Learning Lab was abuzz with excitement and student engagement! The entire morning was amazing and a perfect way to kick off the last week of school! The students (who am I kidding? and the grown ups) had A TON OF FUN! 

A HUGE thank you to Mike Mohammad for an incredible year of collaborative learning! We CAN NOT wait to see what we can put together for next year!!

The high school students, along with Angela, Mike, I were busy Tweeting and Periscoping the morning of fun. Mike introduced us to Storify, so I figured I would use this opportunity to give it a go!

~ Kate

Go-Cart Collaboration Across Levels: Take Two!

Yes, I know it is the middle of March and I just realized this collaboration day took place almost a month ago :( I am embarrassed it has taken me this long to post this...Angela and I will both agree that the month of February was a crazy, whirlwind of activity in T.E.A.M. Togetherness. Between the end of the quarter, parent teacher conferences, visitors, guest teachers, amazingly fun activities, even an extra day, the month flew by and this post sat in our "drafts" for far too long. 

About a month ago we had another awesome morning with Mike Mohammad's AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. After our first collaboration day back in December, Mike and I knew we wanted to get the "bigs" and "littles" together for another day of Physics Fun! Knee deep into our Models and Designs unit, Mike came over to Swanson to observe what we were learning and help me figure out how we could make the connection. When he saw our students would be designing and building self-propelled go-carts, he quickly found a perfect fit!

4th Grade Go-Cart Challenge

Use the supplies provided to design and build a self-propelled go-cart that can move 2 meters on its own! 

Our students were divided into groups and given their baggy of supplies. They were super excited about the challenge and were quick to design conceptual models and jump into the self-propelled challenge. Within minutes, Angela and I began to see the students' frustration grow. They could easily design a go-cart that could roll down a ramp, but they were stumped when facing the self-propelled challenge. We let them struggle for a while and listened in for glimmers of hope. As the conversation and collaboration continued, students started to figure out that the rubber bands in their bags would be the most realistic item to get the go-carts moving on their own. Other groups decided they needed larger wheels. 

After a day or two of working with their small groups, we met as an entire class to discuss the problems we were facing. We then shared out solutions! That is when the magic started to happen...groups started listening and coaching each other. They started sharing ideas, creative juices were flowing, and the go-cart creations started coming together. The grown ups in the space took a back seat and we let the students take over! We had one group of young ladies quickly meet the 2 meter challenge. We celebrated their success, and then encouraged them to share their design with the other groups. They then went out and became our resident experts on self- propelled carts. Within 4 days, all of the groups when from bags of supplies to functioning, self-propelled carts. They were ready to video their cars in motion.

All groups were able to get their go-cart moving on it's own, so they each had the opportunity to have their go-cart video taped for analysis. Some of the go-carts traveled beyond the 2 meter challenge, many did not. Regardless of the distance, the videos were then sent to Mike's students. They used an app called Video Physics to measure the velocity and acceleration of each go-cart vehicle. The high schoolers then created detailed reports that were tailored to each group's go-cart and, more importantly, comprehendable to our 4th graders. They included graphs and explanations that related directly to our Models and Designs learning. The conversations between the engineers from BCHS and Swanson were amazing, to say the least!

Along with investigating the motion of our student's go-carts, the high school students orchestrated five interactive motion stations. Mike, once again, AMAZED all of us with his creativity and work with his high schoolers. Our kiddos were exploring, learning, and in heaven the entire time! If only my high school science courses were this engaging and fun!!

Station 1: Speed Tubes

In this station the BCHS students showed our 4th graders the basics of speed using color tubes filled with air bubbles. The bubbles rose at different rates and our 4th graders used collaboration, and mathematics of course, to measure the speed of the bubbles.

Station 2: Acceleration Cars

What kid doesn't love a wind up car? Using fun pull-back cars, our 4th graders learned the difference between acceleration and speed. They looked at ways to measure acceleration and they even explored how mass affects acceleration.

Station 3: 1st Law Pucks

Newton's First Law of Motion is often stated as An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Using Air Pucks and a TON of interaction, our 4th graders learned more about Newton's First Law of Motion. The Air Pucks, hovering on a cushion of air, helped bring this difficult concept to reality.

Station 4: Energy Coasters

What 4th grader doesn't love roller coasters? This station showed our students the affect gravity has on roller coaster movement. They also discussed free-fall acceleration on other planets. Our students used an awesome simulation tool to build their own skate tracks on different planets. So cool!

Station 5: Motion Sensor Graphs

Our 4th graders have been working with graphs all year and learning the difference between the X and Y axis. At this station, our kids developed a deeper understanding of the X and Y time graph. They learned what different shapes on the graph mean and they used a motion sensor to graph their own movement. They also used this station to practice their Whip Nae Nae!

As I type up these station descriptions, I am thoroughly impressed at what our 4th graders are tackling (and UNDERSTANDING!) with the help of Mike Mohammad and his amazing high school students. I am incredibly thankful for this collaboration time and I LOVE our time together. Also glad that Laura, from Epiphany Learning, was able to pop in and see our two groups in action! One more science unit Mr. Mohammad...the Human Body! I can't wait to see what we come up with next!! 

~ Kate

Collaboration Across Levels: Bigs and Littles Learning Together!

I recently posted about finalizing our Defined STEM sound project. As if that wasn't enough of a final culminating activity, Angela and I collaborated with the infamous Michael Mohammad and his incredible AP Physics students for a fun filled morning of learning! We had been talking about bringing our students together for quite some time, and after some impromptu conversations after the Convening conference, we were finally able to make it happen! Mike's students had been learning about sound...our students had been learning about sound...what an amazing opportunity for both sets of students to share their knowledge with a real audience! 

The Thursday before the holiday break, Mike brought over about 50 AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. His students were divided into five groups and shared their knowledge with our ENTIRE grade level. All of our 4th graders spent the morning rotating through different stations. The groups focused on the following concepts: 

1. Sound waves and tuning forks
2. Doppler Effect and Sonic Booms
3. Sound Uncovered using the app for iPads
4. Using Makey Makeys and Little Bits to create circuits that make music
5. Resonance

When I look at that list, it's hard for me to believe that our 4th graders would even be able to comprehend some of these difficult concepts. Mike's students blew us out of the water! They brought the information to life and, through the use of PearDeck, made presentations interactive and highly engaging! From the Sound Uncovered app to the Doppler Rocket, dancing tuning forks to Star Wars sounds...these high schoolers used a wide range of technology tools that made for a morning of fun. Learning about resonance with Little Bits and creating animals sounds with Makey Makeys, our kids (and teachers) had a blast! To learn more about the high school content, check out Mike's blog post about our morning together! 

All in all, the morning of collaboration was incredible! Not only did the high school students share their knowledge of sound with our kiddos, our 4th graders had the opportunity to present their sound instruments AND their iMovies to a real audience! The learning was engaging and authentic! 

A HUGE thank you to Mike and his students! You WOWED us and can't wait for our next opportunity to collaborate with you! Go-Carts are next...let's do this! 

~ Kate

We Are All Super Stars!!

So, I'm a little delayed in posting this. December was a whirlwind of activity, and although I had great intentions of filling my break with blog posts and planning, instead I chose to spend my days with warm cups of coffee and snuggles.

With that said, Angela and I are excited to announce that just before the winter break our students finished their first collaborative STEM project using Defined STEM. I introduced this project in a previous blog post, and wanted to share an update! Our students worked so hard over the last 2 weeks! All of the groups WOWED us with their creativity, collaboration, and ability to come to consensus.

After our students planned their conceptual models and built the physical models of each instrument, they were ready to advertise for the concert AND perform! They worked together to create a billboard and a performance, that they then recorded and edited. Once all recordings were finished, we uploaded the videos to iMovie and the groups edited their movies and finalized them for our class playlist. All members of the group had to play an active role in the video- they could sing, play an instrument, record, and/or edit the movie. Watching the smiles on their faces during their final performances was the best part of the entire project. It made up for duct tape stuck to the couches, cardboard scraps found in EVERY nook and cranny of the room, and junk, I mean supplies, strewn from one end of our space to another...we are still finding rubber bands and string :)

Our classroom was filled with enthusiasm and excitement (and a whole lot of tape!) whenever they looked at the journey and realized it was science time! With our collaboration day with Michael Mohammad looming, we were cutting it close, but all of the groups stuck to the timeline and finished on time. The students of TEAM Togetherness were thrilled to share their instruments AND their finished videos with their high school mentors. It pays to have a real audience!

We are SO proud of these kids and are already knee deep in the planning of our next STEM project! Hopefully it won't take me so long to post :)

SOUND PERFORMANCES PLAYLIST

~ Kate