Building A Firm Foundation With Third Graders

Building A Foundation

“Designing the Good Life”

Lesson Plan for 3rd Grade

Prepared by Jessica Yandell & Julie Davis

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

Persistence: Trying again, and again even when it gets hard

The purpose of this lesson is to show students that they each have different ideas in their head and they have to work within teams to collaborate and communicate kindly and effectively to get the job done.  

This lesson teaches that all problems, new and unsolved are often challenging, we must learn from our failures.  To make something that is creative and useful, we must be willing to overcome hard problems and collaborate effectively to succeed.  

EDUCATION STANDARDS

1. 21st century collaboration skills
2. 21st century communication skills
3. CSTA Computer Science Standards
4. ISTE Standards
5. Integrated Math, English Language Arts, and Science Standards

OBJECTIVES

1. Outline steps to complete a structural engineering challenge
2. Predict and discuss potential issues in structure creation
3. Build a structure based on team plan
4. Revise both plan and structure until they satisfy challenge
5. Structure must have a purpose and a function
6. How to share responsibility in the engineering design process.
7. Being respectful of our words, and encourage others
8. Understanding the good of the team over their own viewpoint- how to compromise

MATERIALS NEEDED

1. Building Elements
1. Gumdrops  (30 each group)
2. Straws (15 each group)
2. Ruler for checking height
3. Object for testing structure strength

VERIFICATION

1. After the structures are built, recap with the following questions:
1. Did your team work well together today?
1. Why or why not?
2. Did you both work on building the structure?
3. Did you listen to each other?
4. Were your ideas listened to?
5. Did your team ask for help when you needed it?
6. Did you follow your student contract page?
7. Did your team finish the day’s assignment to your satisfaction?
1. Why? Why not?

ACTIVITY

Building a Foundation:

Have you ever started on a task, then discovered it was much harder than you thought it would be?  Challenging tasks can make us want to give up, but by sticking to our goal and keep trying, we can succeed!

In this challenge, we’ll work to construct a strong building that serves a purpose in our community.  The building must have a strong foundation, and be able to hold an object for 10 seconds!

Rules:

1. Determine the student contract, conflict resolution
2. Use only the supplies provided to build the building
3. The building can be any shape, but it has to be at least as tall as a plastic cup
4. Record each step of the building process
5. The building must support the weight of a textbook for a full 10 seconds
6. The building must serve a purpose in our community

Directions:

1. Students are divided into teams of two or three
2. Explain the rules of the Challenge, above
3. Provide each group with limited supplies and make it known that they will get no more
4. Challenge the class to think ahead to the problem and plan out their method of building their first building
5. Encourage students to begin building, then have them alert you when they think they’ve met the challenge by the rules
6. Test each structure.  Is it taller than the cup? Does it support a book for a full 10 sec?
7. Congratulate the students as they succeed and take pictures of the buildings!

3rd Grade Building a Foundation Recap by Jessica Yandell

Building a Foundation:

This week, I was working with a third grade class and the challenge was to construct a strong building out of fifteen straws and thirty gumdrops that serves a purpose in our community.  The building must have a strong foundation, and be able to hold an object for 10 seconds!

I started the project lesson by asking the class what is teamwork? As I listened to the students, many of them were saying “it is working together with someone,” which drove me to ask, “when you work with someone, could you experience disagreements?”  At the beginning I wanted the students to be thinking about collaboration and good communication.

I then presented the conflict resolution student contracts that offer each team a list of five options they can choose from when a disagreement must be resolved.  In this experience, I found it would have been more beneficial to pass out the contracts to the students, then go over them aloud, and take each group through a trial round using the contracts.  I feel if my approach with introducing the contract would have been more efficient,  the students would have referred to them more during the project. Lesson learned for the next time!  

During the project, I walked up and down the room observing the interactions among group members.  There was a lot of communication and collaboration taking place, but what caught my attention the most was the different challenges each group encountered. The main challenge most groups encountered was keeping their structure upright.  I gave a little advice to the groups that asked, but this project was meant to be challenging, so I wanted them to come up with ideas.  

At the end of the lesson, I asked the class if they knew what persistence meant, “yes, I know that is a challenging word for third graders.”  I actually had one little boy raise his hand and answer, “ is it never giving up?” I was like, “yes!” I asked the class if this project was more challenging than you thought it would be?  Pretty much everyone said “YES!.” Challenging tasks can make us want to give up, but by sticking to our goal and keep trying, we can succeed!  The purpose of this lesson was to show students that they each have different ideas in their head and they have to work within teams to collaborate and communicate kindly and effectively to get the job done.

Things I would have changed:

1. Introducing the contracts
2. I would have used popsicle sticks, or toothpicks instead of the straws; the straws were a little challenging for that age to stick into the gumdrops
3. I would have asked them to take turns building the structures because four hands on a little structure at one time was too much!

Architectural Structure to introduce structure and function of teams

Polygon Architectural Structure

Lesson Plan for Grade 5, Collaboration

Prepared by fifth grade team

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

To help students learn the need for a good foundation and structure in their lives. To help students learn how to collaborate well with others. Fifth grade's overarching theme for the year is "I Create, We Create" and their lens is "structure and function"

EDUCATION STANDARDS

1. ISTE Innovative designer student standard
2. Precursor to 5.L.1.1 - Understand how structures and systems of organisms (to include the human body) perform functions necessary for life.
3. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.B.3 Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.
4. Mathematical practice of looking for and making use of structure
5. 21st Century collaboration skills

OBJECTIVES

1. To reflect on group work and the importance of a firm structure
2. To reflect on collaboration efforts within group
3. To make a closed polygon structure based on the challenge presented

MATERIALS NEEDED

1. Neon straws (90 in each bag for pair usage)
2. Scissors (34)
3. Scotch tape (34 rolls- one for each bag)
4. 6 poster boards to put questions on for reflection (2 signs for each classroom)

VERIFICATION

Steps to check for student understanding

1. That students understand and can point out a closed polygon
2. That there are at least 20 polygons
3. That the model is structurally sound
4. That the structure and function can be described by the team
5. That both students participated in the planning and creation of the structure
6. That the students see the importance of effective communication and collaboration as a building block to their learning

ACTIVITY

STEAM coordinator will introduce the directions for creating the structure and work the room as pairs of students are creating their structures. Directions are:

Triangular Architectural Structure

CCS wants to continue to make improvements on campus, we are asking students to present ideas of placing architectural structures to be used around the campus for various purposes.   Be prepared to present your structure and its function.

Directions:

1. To make a basic building block, make one cut in the short end of the straw.

    2.  Insert short end of straw into the long end of another straw.

             Continue to follow this pattern.

    3. The building block must be a closed polygon.

Requirements:

1. Structure must be securely connected - holds its shape.

   2.  Structure must have a minimum of 20 polygons.  You may use     

          more.

    3. Decide as a group the function of your structure.  

         Example:  building, factory, art structure, playground equipment,    

         Etc.

After creation, classroom teacher will discuss the following questions:

Group Work Reflection

1. Did your group work well together today? Why or why not?
2. Did everyone contribute?
3. Did you listen to the ideas of everyone in your group?
4. Where your ideas listened to?
5. Did your group ask for help when needed it?
6. Did you group finish the day’s assignment to your satisfaction? Why or why not?
7. What can YOU do to help make your answer to #8 happen?
8. List at least one specific way you can contribute today.

Adapted from babbdabbledo.com

As I walked around the classrooms looking at the various ideas forming, the teachers were asking three questions: 1. What is your structure? 2. What is your structure's function? 3. How will it be useful to our school campus?

The uniqueness of the structures blew me away...from a school bank with a vault full of money, a swimming pool & playground equipment for our students, not to mention a mansion and private jet for our school president, the creativity was amazing! The students problem solved the issue of needing to have at least 20 polygons as they started their planning, realizing quickly that long-sided shapes meant less polygons. They quickly adapted to the needs in the directions.

To end, each of the three fifth grade teachers had the students share the structure and function of their architecture and they did the recap to discuss the importance of planning, communicating, and growing! It was a great project to start the year off with because it allowed the students to start thinking about teamwork and getting along with their peers!