This year has been a whirlwind for me. It was my second year teaching, and I had the most wonderful challenges in my classroom. I learned a lot, and I am still chugging away to make this year a memorable one for all my little learners!

At the end of the year in second grade, we do a lot of projects. It keeps the students busy, engaged, and learning all the way up through June. I save the last quarter of science for our STEM units. Students solve challenging issues such as erosion or bridges as engineers  with small models.

I ask for donations of any household recyclable materials to help us with our STEM projects. I get donations from both classes that I teach, so I always have a huge pile. Finding room to store all the materials is the hardest part!

This week we learned about engineers and did a STEM project with a worm named Fred. See below for where I found the lessons and how I used them… FREE on TPT.

Download the Fred STEM lesson here for FREE. The kids had a blast and rated it as challenging and fun. As a teacher, that’s a win! We had a blast. Some of us decided that stabbing Fred with the paperclip helped us pick him up. I showed students how to hook him instead, so we don’t hurt Fred. The students decided that a couple Freds needed to have stitches, and one Fred “had a punctured lung and died.” R.I.P. Fred. The good news is all our Freds were rescued from their capsized boats and survived long enough to make it to the gummy worm hospital.

Before we did the FRED activity, we learned what engineers do and the design process. I passed out this free worksheet for students to record notes on while watching these two YouTube videos, Video 1 and Video 2 about engineers and what they do. Then students shared what they wrote to create a class copy on the ELMO. Students who didn’t write anything or struggled can see what others wrote and write on their papers.

Once we were done with that activity, students created flip books about the engineering design process found here. We left page 3 blank. Students will use the flip book and page 3 for future projects.

Once they understood the design process, they were ready to design a solution for our gummy friend Fred who had his boat flipped over with his life jacket inside it. Students were able to design a solution to helping Fred get his lifesaver (which was also gummy) and flip his boat back over. As you can tell from the pictures, we had a lot of fun with it! It was a great introduction lesson for STEM and for engineering. We did it over two days. Engineering the first day and Fred the second day.

If you’d like to continue to follow us throughout our STEM unit, follow me on Instagram at teacher_station, too. Pictures will also be loaded there. We have robots coming in May too!

What fun STEM projects do you do?

This week we had two exciting things happen in our classroom! We received four Flat Stanleys back in the mail, and our pen pal letters came! I told the students that I had a surprise for them and that it would come this week. They didn’t know we were doing Pen Pals, and when I told them and they got their letters, they were ecstatic! We are currently writing back to our Pen Pals, and students who received their Stanleys were eager to present.

We are getting to know some amazing third graders in Maryland. The project not only helps us learn how to write letters, but also geography! There are a lot of ways you can connect to others, especially if you are a new teacher. Join twitter chats, join Facebook groups, and connect to those who you graduated with! Our pen pal classroom is taught by someone I went to school with, and we love learning together! Currently, we are exploring using Google Classroom, Flipgrid, Skype, or another means of technology to “meet each other”. If you do this with other classrooms, comment below what you do!

This is the second year I’ve done Flat Stanley in second grade. The students’ faces light up when they get them back in the mail. This year I utilized a Facebook group of teachers to send Stanleys to for those students who didn’t have anyone to send them too, and it’s worked out great! We had some go all the way to California! Last year, we had one go to Africa, and it led to all my students wanting to adopt an endangered animal.

This year one of my students from last year saw a teepee in my room that students can read in, and she said “Hey! That’s like from where my Stanley went.” I sent her Stanley to a friend’s school where he sent a picture of a teepee back from his area with lots of of pictures. He worked with Native Americans. She remembered it from last year and made a lasting connection! The best part is the students get to keep the materials for life. We’ve had lots of things mailed to us last year and this year that taught us so much that we couldn’t learn without reaching beyond the walls of the classroom.

 

So my advice to you is…

• Make connections to anyone and everyone in your classes if you are going to be a teacher. I’ve sent Flat Stanleys and reached out to multiple teachers I graduated with, and it’s made us better teachers!
• If you are already a teacher, join Twitter chats and Facebook groups because you don’t know who you’ll meet along the way.
  • Twitter Chats for Educators
  • Facebook Groups for Educators. I also found a lot of my connections on Not So Wimpy Second Grade Teachers. They have one for every grade.
• Continue to want to grow and be the best teacher you can be, and make friends along the way!