Friday, December 30, 2016

STEM Challenges

Boone elementary students enjoyed completing STEM challenges recently. They designed, built, and tested structures with some fun themes. This involved lots of trial and error as students worked together to revise their designs and improve their inventions.

Students in Mrs. Boekman's class built a vehicle for an Elf on a Shelf.


First graders in Mrs. Malin's class were given a mystery bag of recycled supplies and had to create an ornament that could be hung on a tree. 

First graders in Mrs. Carter's class designed and constructed a Christmas tree from pipe cleaners that could stand alone. They recorded their reflections and saved them to their Seesaw portfolios.





Second graders in Mrs. Cook's class designed and built sleds for the Grinch. The sleds had to be able to pull a load of blocks up an incline. Students recorded reflections of their building process using the Seesaw app on their ipads.


Students in Mrs. Caruth's 2nd grade class designed and built snowman houses that had to be constructed from 2-D and 3-D shapes they'd recently learned about in math.


Mrs. Swanson's and Mrs. McPartland's 2nd-grade classes built traps that could catch and hold a gingerbread man. They had to be sturdy enough to pass a toss-test to their partner.



After reading the stories, The Most Magnificent Thing and Rosie Revere, Engineer, third graders in Mrs. Viau's class created a useful invention using only a given number of materials in their mystery bag.


After reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, 4th graders in Mrs. Kubik's class designed and created a transport system for the rats to move a cinderblock.


Monday, December 12, 2016

Digital Presenters

The past week students at Boone Middle School have had presenters from Thailand and Colorado via the use of technology.  Technology has allowed Boone students to have opportunities that they would not have had before.









In Ms. Leeds's class, students had a chance to learn about Thailand by visiting with Mr. Leeds while he was working in Thailand via Facetime. Students learned about the agriculture there, as well as every day life. They asked questions and Mr. Leeds shared his experiences with them.




The eighth graders just finished reading the book HERO by S.L. Rottman.  They were fortunate to be able to participate in a question and answer session with S.L. Rottman via Google Hangout.  Ms. Rottman answered students' questions about her book and she shared her experience as a writer with them.