Tag: math

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Why The Arts in STEAM?

Have you seen our post on summer STEAM activities for kids? Which ones have you tried so far? 

While we’re talking about STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), you may wonder… Why the arts? 

The STEM acronym is built around these similar areas, science, technology, engineering, and math. So why throw in something as different and opposite as… Art? 

Short answer- why not? 

Long answer-

Naturally woven into arts are elements of science, technology, engineering, and math. The arts truly are more complicated than anyone gives them credit for! Just by simply participating in art concepts, the exposure to STEM concepts is already there. And the best way for kids to learn? Through play! You can hand out a worksheet on angles. Or you could work on some tape resist art using straight lines and evaluate and work with angles that way. 

Adding in arts also makes the activities naturally more collaborative and promotes teamwork and communication. It’s a simple way to practice being flexible and adaptable because art is naturally something more “go with the flow.” 

There’s also the concept of using both sides of your brain during STEAM activities. Putting arts and STEM together activates the right and left sides of the brain at the same time making the activity more educational and well-rounded. 

Do you practice STEAM concepts in your school? How do you add arts to STEM? 

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Summer STEAM Activites For Kids

Summer is my favorite season for STEAM kid’s activities (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) because it’s easier to clean up! Yes, I know. That’s maybe not the best reasoning. But it’s a very valid reason. STEAM activities can get messy, but taking them outside helps the cleanup process become faster and easier. Here are some of our favorite STEAM activities, along with a few cleaning up tips! 

Sunscreen Painting: I found this gem activity on Pinterest, but we’ve been doing it on repeat at our house! Take a dark sheet of construction paper (black, blue, deep reds, etc) and paint with sunscreen! Leave it out in the sun for a few hours to dry, then come back and see the work you’ve created. It was such a great conversation about sunscreen and how it can help our skin while we’re out playing in the sunshine. 

Oobleck: Such a classic, messy sensory activity. The non-newtonian substance is addicting for kids and adults to play with! I love playing with this in a plastic bin or bowl outside because cleanup is just a simple hose down of everything. Because it’s made of cornstarch and water, it’s safe to hose down into the grass or down the gutter. Please use your best judgment with this and verify if it’s safe for you to do so in your own area or not. 

Diet Coke + Mentos: We all know this activity is also for adult enjoyment, as well as kid entertainment and education. The science behind Diet Coke and Mentos is really fascinating. And if you’re still scratching your head about why it’s a physical reaction instead of a chemical reaction, we’ve got you covered! Check out our article on Chemical vs. Physical Changes.  

Egg Drop: A perfect excuse to use up all of that recycling that’s taking up a corner of your garage (I’m not the only one, right?) Find different ways to protect your egg at different heights of dropping them. The garden hose is also the MVP when it comes to clean up.  

S’mores with Tin Foil: Setting up a little stove with tin foil to make a s’more is not only a great STEM activity, but also a great snack!  

Ice Painting: Have you ever tried painting on ice? The effect is incredible! There are a few ways you can do this. Freeze your own ice cubes or pull cubes out of your ice maker and dump them into a plastic bin or bowl to paint. Freeze a block of water in a big container and paint on the ice chunk. Or buy a bag of ice from a gas station and dump it into a bowl or bin for painting.  

Sink or Float: It may feel boring and overused to you, but I’m willing to bet your child hasn’t done the experiment dozens of times as you have. Find random toys and items, place them in a bucket of water, and see what sinks and what floats.  

Make Your Own Bubble Solution and Wands: We typically make bubble wands out of pipe cleaners, but there are so many materials you can use to create bubble wands. Leaving out different materials and letting the kids come up with their own creations is exactly what STEAM is all about! There are dozens of bubble recipes online, but this one is our favorite: 

½ C. Dish Soap
1 ½ C. Water
2 tsp Sugar

Bubble Foam: Have you tried this yet? It’s a fun outdoor STEAM activity for your kids. I use Busy Toddler’s recipe and instructions. 

Stack Pool Noodles with Shaving Cream: Slice up a pool noodle into smaller discs and build towers by using shaving cream as the “glue.” This is one that is an “outside only” activity for me. Messy play is important, but I have limits too! 

What STEAM activities are you trying out this summer? What cleaning up tips do you have for messy outside play? 

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Inquiry Into Being a Mathematician

This is the 3rd installment of learning identities provocations (completed: Inquiry into being a Writer, Reader).

Inquiring into what it means to be a mathematician is near and dear to my heart because I certainly never identified as such during my school years. So many of us are/were of this mindset: convinced that mathematicians are those people, with little to do with us.

But the truth is we can all start telling  ourselves a much more inclusive story. Being bad at recalling math facts does not exclude one from being a mathematician; nor does being a pro at reciting math facts automatically create a mathematician. Rather, we must all reframe our thinking, identifying our own very real, practicable, and even creative mathematical applications, that do, in fact, make us mathematicians.

Resource #1: Beauty of Mathematics by Parachutes

Resource #2: Tweet by Aviva Dunsinger

Resource #3: Which One Doesn’t Belong? collaborative website by Mary Bourassa

Resource #4: Infinity & Me by Kate Hosford & Gabi Swiatkowska & A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman & Isabel Greenberg

 

Provocation Questions:

  • What does it mean to be a mathematician?
  • How does doing math compare to being a mathematician?
  • What is the connection between creativity and being a mathematician?
  • How can we build our sense of ourselves as mathematicians?
  • What is our responsibility to be a mathematician?
  • What impact does mathematics have on our lives? On our communities?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into LARGE Numbers

My hope is for this provocation’s use to not be limited solely to teaching place, but to help kids gain a greater perspective of this bewilderingly large universe. That though we may be finite, with limited comprehension of the vastness, we do, in fact, have a place in it all. Enjoy!

Resource #1: VIDEO (not embed-able) “Forest of Numbers” by Emmanuelle Moureaux

Resource #2: A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman and Isabel Greenberg

Resource #3: How Much is a Million by David M. Schwartz & Steven Kellogg

Resource #4: Infinity & Me by by Kate Hosford, Gabi Swiatkowska

Provocation Questions:

  • How do we measure large numbers?
  • What are characteristics of large numbers?
  • Why does it matter to be able to measure very large numbers, even when they seem beyond comprehension?
  •  What is the difference between large numbers and infinity?
  • What does infinity mean to you?
  • How do large numbers, and/or infinity, impact your life?
  • How do large numbers, and/or infinity, impact society?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into Numbers

An educator in my PLN, Matthew Oldridge, recently shared a fabulous perspective on mathematics:

“Kids should see mathematics as a thinking tool to use to engage with the world.”

I have long since been an advocate of helping students see the power and wonder of their words; I’m afraid I cannot say the same for numbers. So this week’s provocation centers on helping our students inquire and wonder into numbers.

Resource #1: A Brief History of Banned Numbers, by TED-Ed

Resource #2: 1+1=5: And Other Unlikely Additions, by David LaRochelle

Resource #3: Beauty in Numbers: Pi, by Rebecka Taule

Provocation Questions:

  • How do numbers work?
  • How do numbers allow us to interact with the world around us?
  • What if we did not have numbers?
  • How are words and numbers related?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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On Jumping In Too Fast #TeacherMom

My 3 year-old asked to play a round of “Go Fish.” Apart from his tendency to ask if I have any sharks every time — whether he has any sharks himself or not — he has gotten the general idea of the game by this point.

As we started to acquire matching sets, I deliberately modeled 1 to 1 correspondence as I counted out my sets (ie, “Onnnnnnnnne” [while laying out the first card], “Twwwwwwwooo” [while laying out the second], etc).

And with probably excessive satisfaction, I watched as he reciprocated 1-1 counting with his own sets.

While starting to count one of his subsequent sets, I noticed that he missed the correspondence of naming “One” while simultaneously laying out the first card. And of course, as 1 to 1 correspondence requires us to understand that we can only count one number per object, I was ready to jump in to supply correction.

But, in that brief moment, sensing he was still working things out, I decided to bite my tongue and hold back. And I observed his quiet thinking: “Oh…wait, no…Onnnne” [while firmly laying out that first card again].

He’s already recognizing 1-1 correspondence for himself, thank you very much!

And I realized that I almost missed the whole thing with premature intervention — and more importantly, that he almost missed the opportunity to let his thinking catch up with his hands.

Sometimes, we just need time. I am reminded of this by the many teachers in my PLN who are choosing to slow down as they start the school year, allowing their students to settle into all the new routines, absorb all the new concepts, and build all the new relationships.

It seems to me that when we are too hasty with our learners, we’re often making it less about their learning and more about our fears (falling behind, failing to preempt problems, etc).

Most importantly, making a shift from hurried problem-solving toward reflective observing/questioning, we leave much room for inquiry, curiosity, and quiet thinking.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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How Ownership Can Get Rid of “I Suck at…”

Think having students self-grade and reflect is fluff?

Think again.

Over the course of a 15 year study, John Hattie analyzed over 800 meta-studies to identify effects that have the strongest impact on learning (and he is constantly updating this list through continued studies). Self reported grades is almost at the top of the list of over 150 effects.

It beat out motivation. It beat out home environment. It even beat out “decreasing disruptive behavior.”

The truth is, students know a lot more about their own learning process than we so often give them credit for.

Which brings me to the issue at hand: When a student claims he/she “sucks at ___.”

When I hear that claim, I hear a student that has become convinced that their personal rate of learning is inferior to classmates. That because their progress has not looked identical to their peers, it must mean they are defective. That their learning is fixed, hopeless, and beyond theirs or anyone else’s reach.

Now, discouragement is normal for all learners from time to time. But when said discouragement is also rooted in learning that feels irrelevant or imposed, we’ve got problems.

Enter student ownership.

Any time we empower students with tools to take their learning in their own hands, we are giving them ownership.

Self-assessments are one such powerful tool.

Michael BondClegg recently wrote about giving students the opportunity to write their own report card comments, encouraging teachers to help students identify “ways in which learners can identify their strengths and areas for growth” and “plans for improving.”

This may seem trivial, but really, it turns the whole “I suck at” model on its head.

When a teacher fills out the comments, it perpetuates the whole “this is out of my hands” notion.

When a student is encouraged to fill out those comments in this way, it places the learning back in the students’ hands.

A student in diagnostics mode is student on her way toward a stronger growth mindset.

 

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto