Category Archives: What’s Happening in Kindergarten STEAM

Making a Home for a Monster!

In this Kindergarten STEAM unit, students worked with a partner to make a monster out of glow-in-the-dark beads and pipe cleaners. Then, they were challenged to make a shelter for their monster that would be worth I’d be dark enough to make the monster glow! Students reused recyclable materials like milk jugs, tissue boxes, cardboard tubes, newspaper and egg cartons to build their monster homes. Students tested their design and made improvements!

BeeBots have Kindergarteners Buzzing about Coding

During the 2nd Nine Weeks, Kindergarteners studied Bees in the STEAM Lab through hands-on coding. First, students worked together to create beehives out of donated cardboard tubes and tissue paper flowers. Each week students learned about the ways bees are helpful through short videos from Discovery Education.  Then, students arranged their beehives and flowers on their BeeBot mat.  Students took turns programming or “coding” the BeeBots to get them to model a task such as:

  • Getting Nectar- Going from the beehive to a flower.
  • Making Honey- Going from a flower to the beehive.
  • Pollination- Going from one flower to another flower.
  • Bee Dance- Going back to the beehive and doing a dance to communicate to the other bees where the flowers are.
  • Two Bees-  The first bee goes from the beehive to the flower and and the second bee follows!

Check out the video compilation of this project below, and be sure to check out your child’s See Saw Portfolio. (Don’t have a See Saw account? Email Miss Conroy at cconroy@ambridge.k12.pa.us to ask for one!)

Nursery Rhyme Challenges

Students in Kindergarten participated in Nursery Rhyme themed design challenges during the 1st Nine Weeks.  Students worked together as a team following the Engineering & Design Process to create an egg protector for Humpty Dumpty.  We tested our designs by putting an egg in our protector and dropping it from a staircase.  We had a very high success rate!

Next, students were challenged to get the “cow” to jump over the “moon”, by creating a catapult.  Students used a decorated ping pong ball for the cow and a white balloon for the moon.

Finally, students worked together to make a “fiddle” like instrument.  Check out this video compilation of our Nursery Rhyme Challenges, and be sure to check out your child’s See Saw portfolio for more pictures and video! (Don’t have a See Saw account? Email Miss Conroy at cconroy@ambridge.k12.pa.us)