STEAM SKILLS WERE
THE FOCUS OF FAMILY
LEARNING PROGRAM
T
he fall session of Lincoln’s Family Creative Learning
Program focused on STEAM skills.
This was the second year for this program, which is part
of a five-year PBS Ready to Learn Grant, and 20 Lincoln families
returned to school Wednesday evening for four weeks to enjoy a
meal together and to work as a family on some very cool STEAM-
themed projects.
During the first week, families looked at mixtures. The second
week they had fun creating wearables--clothing that could
protect them, or keep them cool or dry. The third week’s theme
was “Stick or Slide,” where families built ramps with different
surfaces and had to predict whether a small toy car would be
able to stick or slide down the surface. The final week dealt with
building and construction.
All four weeks of the program included several hands-on
activities that families could work on together. During the “Stick
or Slide” activity, families worked together to match up scientific
words such as collaboration, surface, texture and data collection
with their definitions. Then they worked on building their ramps,
covering them with three different surfaces such as wax paper,
towels, play dough and bubble wrap, to determine if a Matchbox
car would be able to glide over the surfaces.
This program is based on the PBS character Ruff Ruffman, one
of the Spy Hounds who encourages students to get involved
Parents really enjoyed working with their children on fun, hands-on activities at the
Family Learning Program.
with science. The program ran from 5:30 to 7:30 PM and was
designed to give families a designated time to eat, explore, make
and share together. From the smiles on the participants’ faces, it
was easy to see that the program exceeded expectations.
Partnering with Lincoln this year was Venture Outdoors, a
Pittsburgh-based non-profit organization, which also provided
some additional assistance and activities for the program. For
the “Stick or Slide” module, Venture Outdoors brought a couple
of kid-sized bicycles to Lincoln and students had the opportunity
to ride the bikes over a different surfaces, to see how the bikes
handled from surface to surface.
Lincoln will offer a Family Creative Learning program in the
spring, with a whole new topic! Coordinating the program for
Lincoln is First Grade Teacher Dawn Douds and Librarian Denice
Pazuchanics.
FOURTH GRADERS ENJOY THE HOLIDAY STEAM PARTY
F
ranklin Fourth Graders in Mrs. Meucci’s room had fun
at a classroom Holiday STEAM Party before Winter
Break.
The students were divided into groups to participate in four
holiday-themed STEAM activities, including making a parachute
out of coffee filters and cup cake papers to enable a Santa
figurine to safely land after being dropped off a ladder; using
popsicle sticks and Play Dough to build a shelf for the Elf on the
Shelf; building as tall of a Christmas tree as possible out of green
plastic drinking cups; and making tree ornaments.
It was fun making a parachute out of coffee filters and cupcake papers to safely
land a Santa figurine that was dropped from a ladder.
Students were challenged to build a shelf out of popsicle sticks and Play Dough
that would hold the Elf on a Shelf.
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BETHEL PARK
The students worked in pairs, with the exception of the
ornament making activity, to problem solve and figure out a plan
to construct objects that would meet the objectives of each task.
Many times the students’ first ideas were not successful, so
they had to go back to the proverbial drawing board to identify
what went wrong and how to correct it.
It was a great way to end the year!