Toothpick and gum lolly fun for preschoolers

This afternoon I enjoyed some creativity time with my three year old son. We got a large supply of tooth picks and a couple of packets of jube lollies. He was very excited at the prospect of eating them more than building with them, but once he realised how much more stable our constructions would be than the playdough and toothpick ones we tried last week he was keen to build upon the base I began.

Here's last weeks playdough effort:

A pretty good start, but too flimsy.
The wonderful thing about using gum lollies is that they are so firm that the tooth pick can be reinserted in different places without worrying about having too many holes. This makes the height and load bearing opportunities for the structures we build to be much greater. Today it was triangular prisms and towers. Tomorrow we may try a bridge to get a car or train across.

I really enjoyed the language Mr Three used to explain what he was doing today. He decided to put my triangular based prism on top of a rectangular prism leaving him one corner and side short. He attached the triangle to the top two toothpicks then explained that it was sagging because there was nothing to support it. I questioned him about solving this problem and he decided to turn the triangle based prism into a square based prism on his own. It all fit nicely and he was rather impressed with himself, as was I with his problem solving skills.

STEM education in Australia

I have been very interested in STEM education for quite a while. For those not familiar with STEM it is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The proponents of STEM education view it as preparedness for students life in the 21st century. The number of STEM jobs available to school graduates is increasing sadly however the number of students electing STEM subjects for their upper highschool and university years is falling.
This leaves educators and engineering based employers with a big problem for the workforce of the future.
My focus is on primary school science education in Australia, having taught science for 7 years. In the early years I also taught maths through the middle of each day. I recall doing the TechnoPush Kids Design Challenge and building with my maths class a mean green billy cart which we raced at Eastern Creek Raceway with loads of other school kids. I now realise we were doing STEM and in a very fun way. The kids had a great time and so did I. It was all so practical and they were motivated to drive their creation and to race it at a day away from school.

The building of the billy cart was a huge and daunting challenge for me as a teacher. I had to extend myself far from my comfort zone and add a lot of extra hours outside of class sourcing materials and doing things to the cart that the students could not for safety reasons. This level of extension, discomfort and committment could be very intimidating for many classroom teachers and the reasons why so many brush science aside.
As I delve further into the world of STEM though, not only do I see why it is vitally important that Australia take on the same level of enthusiasm other countries have for STEM, but I fear we will be left behind if we do not act in the next few years. The American government aims to have over 100 000 STEM qualified teachers in their schools within the next 5 or so years and is partnering with major STEM employing companies to ensure the targets are reached.There is great urgency seen in the UK too, but Australia is reducing government funding in the sciences and in education.
I will be focusing my blog on STEM teaching for a while as I venture down this pathway of learning. I am excited when it will lead.

Teach sound with resonance

I have been thoroughly enjoying working on an all encompassing Sound Unit and am enjoying creating an interactive powerpoint presentation to introduce the concepts of what sound is and how it travels to students.
I have a lot of fun trying to find activities to really engage students from the get go and try to integrate lots of practical activities for students as well as embedding videos.
One of my favourite sound videos for kids is this sound resonance video in which a metal pad is connected to a sound wave generator. Sprinkle some salt on top and turn up the voume.
The various frequencies create waves of varying amplitude and wavelength, which in turn vibrates the metal plate in different ways.
The resulting changes in patterns created by the salt are absolutely beautiful to watch and can be inspiration for other student art lessons.
Take a look at this awesome video.