Game On! STEAM Day

Happy Friday! Does anyone else feel like they blinked and it's suddenly mid-April? What happened to the last few weeks?!

Anyways, if you follow me on Instagram, you might have caught my stories when we did a school-wide STEAM Day with a retro video game twist! We do STEAM days twice per year, just before our breaks as a fun way for the school to come together and get their STEAM on! Teachers love it, kids love, and I love, love, love it! 

I had quite a few requests for the resources, so here you go!

Tetris Puzzles & Pixel Art

 

Pac Man with Dash

Duck Hunt Pom Pom Launchers

Mario Kart Mazes

Sonic the Hedgehog Spheros

If you host your own STEAM Day, let me know with a tag or a comment! Can't wait to see!

The Learning Commons

If you've been reading my blog for some time, then you might have seen my post back in July for our Learning Commons Construction Update. Well, our Learning Commons is finally finished! The month of September has flown by; between the Ribbon Cutting, Open Houses, #Playdates, and all the teaching and learning that has been happening, I'm finally getting around to sharing some pictures of our amazing space to learn!

Article from the Wilmette Beacon

<<WELCOME TO THE LEARNING COMMONS>>

<<TECH LAB>>

<<MAKERSPACE>>

<<MEDIA STUDIO>>

<<READING NOOKS>>

<<THINK TANK>>

<<COLLABOOTHS>>

<<APPLE TV & SMALL GROUP SPACES>>

<<COMMUNITY CIRCLE>>

<<RESEARCH LAB>>

<<GENIUS BAR>>

<<STORY STUDIO>>

 We also have an evolving website for our space, which you can find here. You can also follow us on Twitter @ExploreCentral.

I can't wait to continue to post and blog about all the amazing things our students and teachers do in the Learning Commons! 

#MakerMonday

As part of my blog makeover, I came up with a few "themed" posts that I could do throughout the year.. so here is the first #MakerMonday!

I taught summer school this year, and this time invented my own classes to teach. I came up with an idea for a GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math & Science) class, inspired by so many wonderful people and ideas, including Lindsey Petlak's STEMagination Station, Super Awesome Sylvia, Made with Code, GoldieBlox, and many more! I had two classes of wonderful girls, separated in grades K-1 and 2-3.  

If I could teach GEMS everyday of the rest of my life, I would absolutely, 100% do it! I had the BEST time! Each week brought something new, from using literature as inspiration for activities (like the Wizard of Oz, Mo Willem's Pigeon books, If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss, Harry Potter), to sew electric projects, Squishy Circuits, building with Goldie Blox, coding and programming robots, and more.  It is impossible to choose a favorite activity that we did, but just watching the building unfold out each day of simple items and a little bit of imagination was magical. These are a couple of our Animal Catching Machines from If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss:

They look simple, but the engineering, creativity, thought, and imagination put into them by kindergarteners melted my heart each day. 

Check out the <Tinker> section for some photos of the GEMS awesomeness!