January STEM

This month students listened to the book The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. They completed their stemfolios and were challenged to make a pinwheel with a partner. The students did a wonderful job folding or cutting paper to create a pinwheel. Students chose a type of paper (tissue paper, construction paper, or copy paper) and a design (# of blades, shape of blades). Then, I pushed their pinwheel into a pencil with a thumbtack. We tested them and many didn't work. However, we stressed this was a learning process and sometimes our first design doesn't work. The students handled the struggle well and had fun. There were three that spun around. We learned it worked better for two students to blow together instead of only one student. The tissue paper and construction paper both worked. The ones with two or four blades seemed to spin better.

 STEM days are always the first Friday of every month. Parents are welcome to join us!