STEAM Program
*Archive*
“The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.”
–George Washington
Third Trimester 2018-2019
Second Trimester 2018-2019
First Trimester 2018-2019
We start with all students learning about and applying the Elements of Art to gain language and skills to apply for the rest of the year. Students review elements they covered in previous STEAM grades then learn about a new element in depth and create a project focusing on applying that element.
TK
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Elements: Color, line
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Project: Color and line quilt
K
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Elements: Color, line, shape
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Project: Matisse-inspired organic shape collage
1st
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Elements: Color, line, shape, value
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Project: Silhouette on a value-colored sky
2nd
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Elements: Color, line, shape, value, space
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Project: Horizon with warm and cool colors
3rd
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Elements: Color, line, shape, value, space, form
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Project: Three-dimensional paper sculpture
4th
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Elements: Color, line, shape, value, space, form, texture
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Project: Topography-inspired 3D organic shapes
5th
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Elements: Review all
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Project: Origami box displaying all elements
April and May 2017*
Visit the Gallery, Facebook, or Twitter to see a few things we've worked on this year!
:) Check back for updates :)
*Exact implementation dates of lessons may vary from classroom to classroom due to student needs, holidays, scheduling changes, and pacing.
Transitional Kindergarten (TK)
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For the next several sessions the TK students will complete a series of activities related to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. After enjoying the story, the children will complete an engineering design challenge that emphasizes the design process as well as the artistic process of building a chair. If time permits, the children will perform short excerpts from the story. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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(There are no TK-specific content standards)
Kindergarten**
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From now until the end to the school year the kindergarten students will finish the PLTW module Animals and Algorithms. They will apply skills and knowledge learned from activities in this module to create a matching game and complete a final project. In addition to developing coding skills, science concepts related to animals and habitats will be emphasized. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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1st Grade
From now until the end to the school year the first grade students will be continuing their exploration of sound waves. Some activities may include observing oscilloscopes and making ear gongs. Students will also complete an art piece and an engineering design challenge that relates to sound waves. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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2nd Grade**
From now until the end to the school year the second grade students will continue their study of changes to the Earth’s surface. They will extend their learning of slow and fast changes by creating a stop motion video that illustrates a fast or slow change of their choice. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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3rd Grade
From now until the end of the school year the third graders will be finishing their exploration of magnets and their properties. They will participate in activities that will serve as a foundation for completing an engineering design challenge of a magnetic levitating device. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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4th Grade**
From now until the end of the school year the fourth grade students will be working on the PLTW module The Changing Earth. After exploring differences on the surface of the Earth due to fast and slow changes they will complete a design challenge to save a “city.” Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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5th Grade**
From now until the end of the school year the fifth grade students will discover how modeling and simulation provide powerful insights into complex systems. As they engage in building their own simple computer model, they will come to understand the role computers play in helping scientists study systems.
March 2017
Transitional Kindergarten (TK) (February/March)
This month the transitional kindergarten will continue their study of bridges. They will build load-bearing bridges using craft sticks, tape and cups. An integral part of working through the design process will be to observe other students’ bridges and make changes to their own structures. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their ideas. They will create an art piece as an extension of the design challenge. Vocabulary related to bridges, warm and cool colors, and the elements of art covered in this grade level will also be reviewed. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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(There are no TK-specific content standards)
Kindergarten**
This month the kindergarten students will continue the PLTW module called Animals and Algorithms. They will apply skills and knowledge learned from activities in this module to design and program a simple digital animation about an animal in its habitat. They will also begin studying pushes and pulls by completing an engineering design challenge with dominoes and an art project with force and motion. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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1st Grade**
This month the first grade students will continue the PLTW module Animal Adaptations. They will complete an inquiry investigation to explore how different beak shapes are best adapted for gathering different foods. Students will also explore sound waves using an app as they create sounds with palm pipes, instruments, and other objects. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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2nd Grade
This month the second graders will complete an art project as an extension of the “Super Insect” engineering design challenge. They will use torn paper to create a symmetrical insect. They will also begin studying changes to the Earth’s surface by completing an investigation of weathering, erosion and deposition. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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3rd Grade
This month the third graders will be creating a Stop Motion video that illustrates their understanding of life cycles. They will work in small groups and use a variety of materials to show the different stages of a life cycle of their choice. Time for sharing videos will be allowed so that students can learn from and appreciate their classmates’ work. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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4th Grade
This month the fourth graders will be creating a Stop Motion video that illustrates their understanding of light energy. They will work in small groups and use a variety of materials to show a concept about light. Time for sharing videos will be allowed so that students can learn from and appreciate their classmates’ work. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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5th Grade
This month the fifth graders will explore light energy. They will complete a series of investigations that illustrate how light travels and how the human eye sees light and colors. Students will also begin creating a stop motion video that demonstrates their understanding of the standards addressed in the investigation. They will develop important communication and vocabulary skills as they work together, discuss their ideas and create their videos. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
February 2017
Transitional Kindergarten (TK) (February/March)
This month the transitional kindergarten students will complete an engineering design challenge as they build load-bearing bridges using craft sticks, tape and cups. An integral part of working through the design process will be to observe other students’ bridges and make changes to their own structures, helping to develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their ideas. They will also create an art piece as an extension of the design challenge. Vocabulary related to bridges, warm and cool colors and the elements of art covered in this grade level will also be reviewed. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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(There are no TK-specific content standards)
Kindergarten
This month the kindergarten students will begin the PLTW** module called Animals and Algorithms. In this module students will develop the ability to design simple algorithms and implement them digitally on a tablet. Students will consider why humans make things with technology as well as how humans control computers. Students will explore computer programs through hands-on activities both with and without a computer. Applying skills and knowledge learned from activities in this module, students will work in small groups to design and program a simple digital animation about an animal in its habitat. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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1st Grade**
This month students will create an art piece that relates to the “Dots and Toothpicks” engineering design challenge that was completed in January. Because the students built and discussed shapes and forms in their Dots and toothpick structures, their art project will be a watercolor cityscape with an emphasis on the elements of art that are covered in first grade.
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They will also begin the PLTW module Animal Adaptions. They will learn what it means for an organism to be adapted to its environment and how different adaptations can be categorized. Through various investigations students will explore examples of adaptations for protection, camouflage, food, and locomotion. Music and movement activities develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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2nd Grade
This month the second grade students will create an art piece that relates to the “Highest Perch for Harry” engineering design challenge. Harry the creature sat high on his perch, which gave him a particular perspective of his surroundings. In their art piece, students will use chalk as they explore perspective and discuss the elements of art that are covered in second grade. Students will also create a “Super Insect” as they explore how organisms disperse seeds. They will develop important communication and vocabulary skills as they work together and discuss their ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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3rd Grade
This month the third graders will explore variations of traits. They will complete an investigation to discover how and why some traits are inherited and some are not. In a second activity, students will have the opportunity to list traits of two different animals and merge these traits to create and draw a new and interesting species. They will develop important communication and vocabulary skills as they work together, discuss their ideas and talk to the class about their new animals. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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4th Grade
This month the fourth graders will explore light energy. They will complete a series of investigations that illustrate how light travels and how the human eye sees light and colors. If time permits, students will create a stop motion video that demonstrates an understanding of the standards addressed in the investigation. They will develop important communication and vocabulary skills as they work together and discuss their ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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5th Grade
This month the fifth graders will explore the force of gravity. They will do an engineering design challenge to create a paper chain that holds the most weight. If time permits, they will complete a second challenge during which they will build a structure that must bear an eight-pound load using paper, a small piece of cardboard and tape. They will develop important communication and vocabulary skills as they work together and discuss their ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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January 2017
TK: 5 Senses​
This month the transitional kindergarten students will be finishing their study of the five senses. They will use their sense of smell to identify foods and scents, and they will use all five senses during an investigation in which they differentiate between salt and sugar. They will also be working through the PLTW** engineering design process as they build the tallest tower possible using cups. An integral part of this process will be to observe other students’ designs and make changes to their own towers. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their design ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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(There are no TK-specific content standards)
Kindergarten
This month the kindergarten students will be working through the PLTW** engineering design process as they build the tallest tower possible using cups and craft sticks. An integral part of this process will be to observe other students’ designs and make changes to their own towers. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their design ideas. In addition, they will learn and perform a rhythmic movement piece to the song El Capitan. Warm and cool colors will be covered as students create an art piece that has shapes and patterns. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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1st Grade
This month the first grade students will be finishing their PLTW** module Animated Storytelling by creating and animated story with a partner using the coding application Scratch Jr. Time for sharing out will be allotted so that students will be able to observe and appreciate others’ stories. In addition, they will be working through the PLTW engineering design process as they build load bearing towers using candy Dots and toothpicks. An integral part of this process will be to observe other students’ designs and make changes to their own structures. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their design ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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2nd Grade
This month the second graders will be finishing their PLTW** module Grids and Games by finishing and adding to a game created in the coding application Scratch Jr. Time for sharing out will be allotted so that students will be able to observe, appreciate, and play others’ games. In addition, they will be working through the PLTW engineering design process as they build the highest perch possible for a fuzzy friend. An integral part of this process will be to observe other students’ designs and make changes to their own structures. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their design ideas. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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3rd Grade
This month third grade students will be working through the PLTW engineering design process as they build load bearing bucket towers. An integral part of this process will be to observe other students’ designs and make changes to their own structures. They will also develop important communication skills as they work together and discuss their design ideas. In addition, they will create an art project using the force of air, and warm and cool colors will be emphasized. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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4th Grade
This month the fourth grade students will be working through the PLTW** engineering design process as they design and build a marble run with the slowest run time. They will sketch and record their group’s run times so that they can make design improvements as they work cooperatively. They will develop important communication skills as they work together, discuss design ideas and explain their thinking. In addition, they will create a related art project. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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5th Grade
This month the fifth grade students will be creating a three dimensional radial sculpture made from paper. Fractional parts, including addition of fractions, will be emphasized as children fold and lay out designs from a center point of a piece of black paper. An integral part of this activity will be attending to precision, as three specific folds will be created from pre-cut squares of paper. Students will choose to make their sculptures using either warm or cool colors. Music and movement activities to develop rhythm and music reading skills will be integrated.
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2016
Art: Elements of Art
On the first week of STEAM, all grade levels will participate in an art project that focuses on the elements of art. This art project will take more than one STEAM session to complete and thus, will continue throughout the first trimester. The following chart shows the focus elements for each grade level:
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TK: 5 Senses​
Students will be introduced to the 5 senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste through a series of lessons that appeal to all modalities of learning. Students will focus on each sense for one to three sessions. For sight, students will learn about colors and create their own art pieces using watercolors. For touch, students will be introduced to vocabulary such as, rough, soft, smooth, bumpy, and hard and create a crayon rubbing. They will also experiment with clay for fine motor practice. Through the sense of hearing students will listen for sounds during a “listening walk”, and classify sounds into nature vs. man made. They will learn about rhythm and instruments, and have an opportunity to create their own instrument. For smell, students will get to smell different scents using “smell boxes” and graph likes and dislikes. For the sense of taste, students will learn vocabulary such as, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami while tasting foods from different categories. Lessons will culminate in a final review and art piece.
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(There are no TK-specific content standards)
Kindergarten: Project Lead The Way (PLTW**) Module Structure and Function: Human Body
In this module students will be introduced to a story where a character, Angelina, falls off the monkey bars and breaks her arm. Students follow Angelina’s case as they progress through the module, learning about both the diagnosis and treatment of her injury. As students follow Angelina’s story, they explore the basic relationship between structure and function in the human body. They will look at major structures, or organs, within the body and investigate how the structure of each organ is related to its function. Once students establish an understanding of basic structure and function in the body, they will then take a deeper look at the functions of bone. They will assemble a skeleton and create a model X-ray of a hand. They will then act as scientists to perform an inquiry investigation to understand why each of our fingers are made up of more than one bone. Finally, students will work through an engineering design process to design and build a cast for Angelina.
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1st Grade: PLTW** Module - Animated Storytelling
In this module students will develop the ability to create digital animated stories on a tablet. Students will explore the sequential nature of computer programs through hands-on activities both with and without a computer. Applying skills and knowledge learned from activities in this module, students will work in pairs to design and program a simple digital animated story that interacts with the reader..
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2nd Grade: PLTW** Module - Grids and Games
In this module students will build knowledge and skills that will enable them to program a game on a tablet. Through the activities and project in the module, students will explore how mathematics is used in animation by using addition and subtraction to move characters on a numbered grid. Students will discover that computer science is important to many parts of our lives, and that computer scientists do more than just program computers.
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3rd Grade: PLTW** Module - Programming Patterns
This module introduces important computer science concepts such as abstraction and modularization. These are computer science terms that mean breaking big problems down into smaller ones. One way to break programming problems down is to use functions to handle processes that are easy to separate out from the larger program. Students will use these functions to create symmetrical art patterns and problem solve how to create animal shapes.
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4th Grade: PLTW** Module - Input/Output: Computer Systems
This module introduces students to computer systems' infrastructure including basic computer hardware and digital data representation. Students start by comparing the computer system to a human brain, focusing on input, processing, and output. Students move on to learning about how data is stored in a computer. Finally, students will learn about collecting data and representing it visually by creating an Alien Drop game using the app Tynker.
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5th Grade: PLTW** Module - Infection: Detection
In this module students are presented with a problem where a large number of students at a school are sick. Students learn about transmission of disease through a simulation and compare communicable and non-communicable diseases. Students design, run, and analyze data from an experiment related to preventing the spread of germs. Student groups present ways to prevent the spread of infection using evidence from their experiments. Students investigate how the body protects us from these germs to keep us healthy. Bacteria and viruses are introduced as agents of disease, and students use information learned and patient symptoms to identify the disease agent causing a simulated disease outbreak.
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**Descriptions of lessons containing PLTW (Project Lead the Way) activities include direct or summarized synopses from PLTW modules.