Thursday, January 10, 2019
Winter Holidays Around the World
I was looking for something fun and exciting to do with my 5th grade students in the weeks leading up to Holiday break. We had just completed our Scratch unit and were moving into using the Dash robots. I decided to do a project that incorporated winter holiday, robots, and research.
My Winter Holidays Around the World Project was born!
Students were divided into groups and assigned a different winter holiday. Some of the holidays they were assigned included:
- Hanukkah
- Christmas in Australia
- Advent (Germany Christmas)
- St. Lucia
- Kwanzaa
- La Befana (Italian Christmas)
- Ramadan
- Diwali
Students began by researching their topic. Since I use MackinVIA for my digital resources, I was easily able to put all of the websites they could use in a group. This group URL could easily be shared with students through Google Classroom. Students were given a packet with questions to answer using the websites and databases provided.
Link to Packet I used - Found on Teachers Pay Teachers
Link to Packet I used - Found on Teachers Pay Teachers
Next, students cut apart their packet and made a poster using a piece of oak tag. They could decorate it as desired. They then picked out their five favorite facts and wrote them down.
Lastly, the fun part came. Students used Dash the robot and the Blockly app to record those five facts and incorporate movements. They did this using the block based coding. When I asked students if it was difficult for them, they said "No, it was easy" Spending time on learning the Scratch program, really laid the foundation for this project. One of my students even said "This is my favorite project I have ever done!"
Teaching kids coding is a wonderful thing, but giving them wings to branch out and design with coding is magnificent!
Video I Took of a Completed Project
Video I Took of a Completed Project
Subscribe to:
Posts
(Atom)
Popular Posts
-
This week proved to be a fun but tiring week. After a little over a week off for Winter Break and a four day week following that, five days...
-
Anyone who knows me, knows I am a huge fan of the Mackin company. I cannot say enough good things about them. They are a wonderful company... -
Over Winter Break I did some serious thinking about my blog, and decided to keep more of a running log of my weeks. This will be a great re... -
Welcome to another Blog post! I skipped last week, becuase we had two days with two hour delays and one day off due to winter storms. On o... -
This was one of those weeks that just flew by! Packed with meetings and busy times with my students. Our Makerspace has been a huge hit wi... -
This week marked my debut in Cherry Hill School District, NJ. I was so happy to welcome Kindergarten to the beautiful media center. The p... -
It's the night before my first day of 2018/19 school year, and reality is finally sinking in. This was truly a summer of learning. I s... -
About four years ago, while attending the PETE&C (Pennsylvania Education Technology Expo and Convention, I found out about Canva for the... -
Working as a school librarian poses many challenges. One of the biggest challenges is finding a way to get teachers to collaborate with you...
