STEM Week in the Cub Cadets

STEM Week in Preschool

In an effort to boost students’ interest and raise awareness of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, the Baker-Polito Administration has declared a statewide STEM Week from October 22-26, 2018, and is asking educators at all grade levels to participate by planning lessons, events, and activities focused on science, technology, engineering, and math throughout the week.

Students from pre-kindergarten through high school and postsecondary institutions will be encouraged to take part in hands-on learning that aligns topics across STEM subjects and connects to other curricula.

This week our class conducted a variety of STEM activities:

Exploring Gravity

- We looked around our classroom for materials to use in an experiment.  A teacher held the object out and then we observed the speed it fell to the ground.  For example, the block fell quickly and made a loud sound, the feather took longer to fall to the ground.) We talked about why we think the objects fell differently. We notice the heavier the object was the quicker it fell like the block. The lighter objects like the feather and tissue took longer to fall to the ground.

Marble Mazes in the Sensory Table

-We constructed marble mazes in the sensory table this week.  They enjoyed watching the marbles on ramps, marble wheels, and marble drops.  

Ramp Racing

-We talked about ramps in a whole group. We talked about how ramps are simple machines and they help us move objects from one place to another. We then made predictions which ramp would make the car go further. (long, medium, or short ramp) The children raced the cars down the ramps and we marked the spot where the cars stopped. We discovered the longer ramp made the car go the furthest distance and the short ramp made the car go the shortest distance. We then added cars and ramps to the block center.  We explored on our own how to build ramps and how to change the speed of the cars.  When the ramps were diagonal, the cars moved. When the ramps were flat, the cars did not move.

Building Towers

-We used shaving cream to build block towers.  We used shaving cream to help hold the blocks together.  We counted to see how many blocks we could build in our towers before they fell.  We recorded the colors we used on our papers too.

Observing Physical Changes

- We found pieces of ice on the playground.  We took the ice into our school and placed them in two bowls.  We placed one in the freezer and one we left in our classroom. At the end of the day, we compared both pieces of ice and made some conclusions.  (ie The freezer is cold so the ice stayed ice. The ice melted in our classroom because our classroom is warm.)