Engineering Fridays

Well, Fridays OFFICIALLY rule!

We are now having Engineering Fridays. So every Friday, until the end of the school year, our days are dedicated to designing, problem solving, creating and testing. We have done a few science experiments and math based problems in our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) books, but this was our first official go at engineering in kindergarten! 

Mrs. Baer and I got together and created the STEM books to incorporate some more hands-on learning in our classrooms! Each Friday our Engineering day will be focused around a specific book and a design problem that was in the book. 

Today  read the book "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." We discussed the problem that they had in the story and what qualities make a good bridge. We concluded in order to make a good bridge it needed to be: 

1. Strong

2. Long (at least 18" to get from table to table)

3. Have side supports

4. Straight 

We knew our bridge needed to pass 2 tests: 

1. Support the weight of 3 billy goats (Schleich figurines) 

2. Get a moveable car across the bridge 

First We had to Design our Bridges - looking both at our materials and the length of the bridge.

Then we spent 35 minutes creating our bridges. Most students wanted and needed more time that that, but we decided that engineers work on projects for weeks, months and even years, so this was just our "first" testing round. 

First we had to test the bridges to see if they would support our 3 billy goats. 

Then we tested our bridges to see if they could hold the weight of a car and if the car could get from point A to Point B without falling off. This is where it was really important to have a straight bridge with some sort of side rails! 

Overall the day was a HUGE success! We had all 19 bridges support 3 billy goats AND 10 bridges were strong and straight enough to get the cars across! It was pretty impressive engineering! We cannot wait until our next Fun Friday! 

Mystery Reader Marisa

Happy Valentines Day!!

What a great way to spend Valentine's Day! We had some wonderful parents help out with 5 different Valentine Stations! The entire day was filled with love, candy, valentines, and excitement! The last hour of the day we held our class Valentine Party.  
We had five interactive stations: 

Station One was a Sweet Heart Graphing station. In math we are working on interpreting and creating bar graphs. Shelby's mom, Stacey helped sort, explain and create graphs. They students loved working at this station and enjoyed eating their math manipulatives while they worked away! 

Station Two was an Ice Cream Station! Not just plain Ice Cream, but they created an Ice Cream Sundae station where each student got to create their own personalized sundaes, adding whichever toppings they enjoyed. There were a lot of messy, yet giggling faces at this station! Thank you to Brynn's mom, Nicki for reading so many fun valentine books to them AND making sure everyone was full and having fun! 

Station Three was a Memory Match Station. The students had to stay focused during this game and try to match up words and pictures during this game. Hailey's parents, Jason and Kristi, were very helpful during this game and kept all the students smiling and tatted up! They loved finding a matching set, drinking juice from heart shaped straws and getting unique Valentine tattoos! 

Station Four was a heart headband stations! This station had Samson's mom, Holly and Osborne's mom, Amy working hard to create heart patterns, cut, staple and assemble heart patterns! They did a great job helping the kids create cute and creative heart headbands! I wanted one for myself they were so adorable!! 

Station Five was Heart Bingo Station. The students love playing Bingo! We frequently play it with our site words, letters, and beginning sounds. This is a great way to practice Capital Letters, Lowercase Letters, and Star Words at home! Jordan's mom, Kim helped call out letter sounds, letter names, and words that began with specific letters. They loved picking out of the prize box when they won and everyone even received a goody bag after completing this station! 

We ended our party by opening up our Valentine's and investigating to see all the yummy treats we had inside and handwritten Valentines inside. Since we had so many parents Ms. Bordewick and I had the opportunity to take pictures! Hope you enjoy the slideshow and hope there weren't too many terrible tummy aches when they got home! 

Happy Valentine's Day! 

 Special Thanks to all those who donated items to make this party a success! And to those who were able to attend the Party and Lending a Helping Hand: 

Jason & Kristy Ring

Stacey Jones

Kim Brown 

Holly Rosevold

Amy Lorenz

Nicki Sandmann