Teaching Growing Doing

Bring science, literacy, and engineering together with this engaging hands-on STEM activity inspired by the book Fossil Huntress: Mary Leakey written by Andi Diehn. A free book that can be found on Epic Books! Students will learn about pioneering paleontologist Mary Leakey and her incredible fossil discoveries while designing and testing their own excavation tools. In this cross-curricular lesson, students use the Engineering Design Process to create a tool that can safely uncover hidden fossils

🚀 Blast Off into STEM Learning with Robert Goddard! 🚀 Inspire your students with the incredible true story of Robert Goddard while engaging them in hands-on engineering and scientific thinking! This interactive lesson is built around the beautifully written book When Sparks Fly: The True Story of Robert Goddard, Father of U.S. Rocketry by Kristen Fulton and is perfect for bringing STEM to life in your classroom. What’s Included:This ready-to-use lesson plan guides students through an engagin

Introduce your students to the incredible story of Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, with this engaging, hands-on lesson! Students will explore how Ada combined creativity and mathematics to imagine the first computer programs—long before computers even existed. Through a combination of read-aloud discussion and an interactive “unplugged” coding activity, students will practice writing clear, step-by-step instructions to solve a challenge—just like Ada did. This lesson encoura

✨ Architect Zaha Hadid Inspired Engineering Design Process Activity ✨ Bring architecture, art, and engineering together with this engaging lesson inspired by the famous architect Zaha Hadid! Students will learn how architects use shapes from nature and the world around them to design unique buildings that blend into their environments. 📘 Featured Read-Aloud: The World is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter🌟 What’s Included:Discussion Questions to guide con

✨ Frank Lloyd Wright Inspired STEM/STEAM Activity ✨ Bring architecture, art, and engineering together with this engaging lesson inspired by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright! Students will learn how architects use shapes from nature and the world around them to design unique buildings that blend into their environments. 📘 Featured Read-Aloud: The Shape of the World by K.L. Going 🌟 What’s Included: Discussion Questions to guide conversation about Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and work.

Challenge your 5th-8th grade students to take an everyday item and improve it with this 14 day PBL Engineering Design Process Unit. You will get 14 days of slides that include learning targets, what to grade, rubric for final project, CC standards and NGS standards, and ways to shorten the unit. Also included is a student design brief already set up for double sided printing. The design brief matches day by day with the slides. It also includes a rubric for the project and a self reflection base

Bump! is an easy game to learn, but just like any other board game, it has twists and turns until somebody wins! In this game for 2-4 players, children have to use strategy and sight word skills to win the game! Each gameboard has 24 words from the second hundred words on Fry's list. Find the first 100 words HERE.

Have you ever played Bump! It's a simple game to learn, but like every good board game, it can have twists and turns before some one wins! In this edition of the game, students will review the first 100 words on Fry's Sight Word list. Each of the five game boards has 24 words to practice. I've included game tokens and a spinner, and I've included color and ink saver versions! Find the second hundred HERE!

This is a fully editable PowerPoint presentation to help you guide your lesson on descriptive writing. It's also a great jumping off point to teach evidence writing! It can be used over seveal days and provides opportunities for guided instruction, group work, and independent writing.

This product is designed for kindergarten through second grade, but older students who struggle with coding could enjoy this "game" too! You can do this activity by projecting it on a white board and moving a cut out character through each level, or you could use it as a coding station/center/done box. This is a great way to introduce coding before having students logging onto a computer and using your favorite coding website. This product comes with 26 slides: 8 introduction and set up slides w

As I was tutoring this summer, I was looking for games to help my students recognize equivalent fractions. There wasn't a whole lot out there, so I made these! When I introduce these games, I always have the students name the fractions on the game board first. They each only use 5 or 6 base fractions. We then list the first few fractions. Beginners can use their list while they play, and more advanced students put their list away and rely on mental math or a whiteboard and marker to figure out i

In this project based learning unit students will work with their Planetary Exploration Team to visit an alien planet and document one of the delicate ecosystems that are found, “take pictures” of a specific habitat and its inhabitants, document the food webs and chains that exist in this habitat, and create a pamphlet or handout that describes the keystone species, prey animals, predators, producers, and abiotic and biotic factors. They will also create a display to showcase their learning. St

This is a fully customizable Power Point and Word document! The PPT includes the "story" and motivation for the STEM build, including links to videos (hint: pictures tend to be hyperlinked!). This also includes all the student papers. Skills involved are: communication/collaboration, measurement, estimation, problem solving,time management, and public speaking/demonstration. It would be easy to add in budgeting skills too!

I struggled for a few years on how to teach this concept! The traditional "toilet paper AU" activity was too messy and didn't really help my kids because they were too involved in making the mess. I developed and used these activities to review graphing AND to help my students visualize planet size and distance from the sun. In this two part activity, students will read a data table that gives them the information they need to create a bar graph to compare the diameters of the planets and some

Students explore the history of space exploration by visiting a variety of websites. The time line is hyperlinked to sites that start in ancient times up to current discoveries and expeditions. Great for BYOD days, sub plans, independent work or pairs. *This is an old resource that I created. I can no longer confirm if any of the websites are still functioning. It is now a free resource. Use at your own risk.

This is a student led discovery lab. Students create a list of possible combinations of conditions (given specific boundaries) for finding the best condition to dissolve a sugar cube. This leads to a discussion on conditions that affect the rate of changes. Depending on your class and available supplies, this can be done as a demo, small group, or individual assignment. It's perfect for homeschoolers too because it is "kitchen science"!

This activity uses two online interactives on light addition and subtraction. Students explore the two interactives, complete a data chart, and then using the information from both charts answer analysis questions. It's great for substitute days, as an introduction to visible spectrum, or as a homework or independent assignment. Also great for students who miss your in class hands on activity, or for students who need more practice with the concept.

Is it too hot/cold outside to do the speed of sound activity you have planned? Does your school not have a field large enough to demonstrate sound? Are you a home school teacher or a tutor who needs an quick activity to get this concept across? Then this activity is for you! In this ONLINE demonstration of speed of sound, students move an explosive up to 5km away and detonate it. Students time how long it takes the sound of the explosion (a loud POP) to get to them after detonation. They docume

Are you looking for a quick sound lab using an online oscilloscope? Do you have limited time to teach how sound travels and need an independent activity that can be done at home or school? In this activity students explore a keyboard that is attached to an oscilloscope. They can see how volume doesn't change the waves. There is a digital display that shows a wave and a box that shows the frequency of that wave. Students collect data on 10 different pitches, take that data and create a graph,

This PowerPoint guides students through using a 4-Square planner for writing an argument. It is meant to help students look at information critically, decide which information to use, and then organize it in a meaningful way. When I used this with my class of 6th graders, we did this lesson over a few days and then they had to write the opposing view on the same topic.