Description
Scenario
As you sit down to develop this week’s lesson plan in your pre-kindergarten classroom located in your neighborhood public elementary school, you decide to introduce your young learners to STEM concepts to prepare them for a successful transition to kindergarten. Your focus is STEM activities that are based on curiosity, inquiry, and play. You decided to set-up STEM-based lesson plan activities for the week – such as science experiments, engineering challenges for the children to complete in both small and large groups, and opportunities for STEM exploration during free-play such as having building toys and math games available to the children.
You begin by creating a lesson plan activity that allows the children to work in pairs and use their iPads as a guide for building with blocks. One child builds a tower with blocks and the other child will use their iPad to take photos of the tower of blocks to rebuild. The child will save the photos in an album on the iPad and use them as a guide to build their own tower. You are elated by how fast the children grasp the concepts and how they can use their iPads independently. What’s more, you are super excited to see the children going to town building block towers exactly like the photos showed.
Directions
For this assignment you will create a lesson plan template for STEM-based activities. You may use the lesson plan form from your early learning program, the sample lesson plan template (located below), or create a chart, table, or map.
Age Group: Specify the age group for the lesson.
Infants/Toddlers
- 2-year-olds
- 3-5-year-olds
- Schoolagers
- Content Area: Identify the content area or topic of your STEM activity (i.e., math, sensory and science, technology, nature-based learning, water play, etc.)
- Planning for the Activity/Lesson: Develop an original STEM activity/lesson around your topic. Make sure the STEM activity provides children with an opportunity to explore technology tools, as well. All work should be formatted professionally and use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Your STEM activity will include the following:
- Connect your topic to a real-world problem (e.g., create ramps and send various items that go).
- Clearly define the STEM challenge the children will tackle (e.g., create a ramp using cardboard boxes, empty paper towel rolls, rubber bands, glue, or other everyday household item and materials).
- Decide what success looks like (e.g., how will the teams test the sturdiness of the ramps? What measures will you take? Racing toys cars?).
- Use the engineering (building) design process for planning (e.g., high towers, houses, bridges, or ramps with Legos to expand children’s design process and their engineering skills).
- Help the children identify the challenge (e.g., set up a scenario that captures the children’s interest and lays out the problem).
- Involve the children (in teams/groups) in completing the challenge (the children can conduct hands-on research while discussing, investigating, creating, and discovering with their peers).
- Conducting the Activity/Lesson: You will practice your STEM activity before you introduce it to your young students. You will learn much from this exploration and discovery prior to bringing the lesson into the classroom.
- Be prepared for mistakes or elements that do not work. Be prepared for exploration. Be prepared for trials of discovery. STEM is inquiry and process driven. Conducting your STEM activity will prepare you to guide and assist the children’s learning
