Beebots in the Elementary Classroom

Beebots were created with the intention to teach early coding skills to lower elementary school age students/children. However, Beebots have grown into much more of a learning tool. Students are extremely engaged while using Beebots so educators can take advantage! Teachers can have the bees help reinforce what students are learning by creating customizable mats, question cards, and answer cards.

I have created transparent mats so that any type of flash cards can be used with the clear mats. You will just need answer cards to be placed under the transparent mat, like in the photo.

In the sight word game from the photo to the right, one student would direct/code the Beebot to travel to a sight word and then another student would read the sight word. Students would take turns continuing to code the bee to a word for their classmate to read. I created answer cards for 24 of the toughest Frye words in the first 100 and then another 24 from the second 100. The answer cards shown can be turned over to be used with math flash cards that have answers from 0-23.

Thanks to the generous donation from David and Sandy Perloff of The Perloff Family Foundation we have several sets of Beebots. At Edna Libby Mrs. Cutter and Miss Magnuson have 4-6 Beebots and mats in their classrooms plus there are 2 Bees and mats in the STEAM Lab. At HBE Miss Nappi will have 5 Beebots and mats plus there will be 4 Bees and several mats in the STEAM Lab. I plan to make more mats including some for story retell. Krista Poulin, our curriculum coordinator, is going to make some customizable mats using a poster maker they have at Central Office. Teachers will be able to write on those mats with a dry erase marker so that they can be changed up regularly. Beebots make a GREAT center activity! Please let me know if you want to try them out with your students. (SF - We can work something out if you are interested.)

Below is another generic mat I created that can be used with any flash cards.

 

For the Rules PDF Click Here

Resources for More Ideas:

(Click Photos Below to go to the Sites)

 

Making STEAM Doable: STEM Challenges and Digital Interactive Workbooks

Do you want a 30 minute or less lesson that you don't have to plan and takes very little prep? Do you want to get in some STEAM in a very heavy literacy focused classroom? Well, I have the solution for you. STEM Challenges!!! Through STEM Challenges students can work on all kinds of skills that we need students to have. 

For example the video Team Building STEM Challenges I have created focus on skills to help students to work well with others. All of the Challenges have a video about working as a team for the classroom teacher to show before the STEM Challenge video. Then teachers show the STEM Challenge video to their students so that the classroom teacher does not have to present the challenge. All of the STEM Challenges have an instruction sheet like the one pictured. Each sheet includes three more videos that can extend the lesson. There are also STEM Challenges that don't involve videos. You can also find them in the instruction sheet link. They are listed as PDFs in the STEM Challenge folder.

Beyond team building I have also created STEM Challenges that go along with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Again there is very little prep work for teachers and most of the supplies, if you work with me, are in our STEAM Labs. I am working on more challenges and will align those with NGSS. The first ones I created are not aligned, but are still great for design thinking and touch upon skills that will help students think. Some include math, science, and technology skills in the design or as part of the video. Some also integrate literacy because they accompany a story book, like The Runaway Pumpkin or Marshmallows Galore. To get to the play list for STEM Challenge videos CLICK HERE.

Another awesome tool that other tech coaches and I have been creating is Science and Math Book Creator templates that are aligned with NGSS or math standards. This allows a classroom teacher to have students work through a digital interactive workbook when they get 5-15 minutes here or there throughout the school week. Then there is no pressure of time. When you have a little extra time you can fit a little science or math in. CLICK HERE to find the downloadable workbooks that work in Book Creator on an iPad. 

 

 Example STEM Challenge Lessons 

Kindergarten

1st Grade

2nd Grade

3rd Grade

 

For more information about the STEAM Labs visit my Website.

Educandy for Creating On-Line Games

Educandy is a great tool for educators and students! Create activities for students by adding words or questions with answers and students will have a variety of game options to choose from. The games are really cute and perfect for word work as part of independent centers. There is also a quiz feature to use for formative assessments, exit slips, or pre/post tests. The learning games can be played on any device. Accessing the games is quite easy for students and there are a few different options for teachers to choose. Educandy is very well designed and user friendly. I highly recommend you give it a try!

Below is a great tutorial video by Richard Byrne showing how to create and share games using Educandy.

Try out some games I created with words from 
Literacy Dictations. (Use code 3c71)

Green Screen Bee Project

Kuddos to Mrs. Sparks for having her students research what is happening to our bee population and letting students show their creaivity! Mrs. Sparks students did a ridiculously fabulous job with this project. After students researched bees they wrote a script with their partner, performed the skit in front of a green screen, and then used the Green Screen App by Doink to add cool backgrounds. Below are a few students examples. I truly was blown away with how fantastic these students did with their projects!

This article is meant as a shout out to fabulous work by Mrs. Sparks third grade class. However, if you would like to learn more about using DoInk with your students check out my article on, Green Screens Rock and What I Have Learned the Last Two Years or Smashing Zookazam with Green Screen by Doink.