How to Plan Your Elementary STEM Lessons for October
As we head into October, it’s the perfect time to incorporate seasonal themes and hands-on challenges into your STEM curriculum. Using the recommendations from the October Lesson Planning Guide, you can engage students from kindergarten through 5th grade in exciting STEM activities throughout the month. Let’s break down how to structure your October STEM lessons week by week for the four weeks of October.
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Week 1 & Week 2:
Making STEM Connections
In the first two weeks of October, the focus is on connecting STEM concepts through paired challenges. These lessons not only introduce new topics but also help students see the relationship between different STEM areas.
Themes and Activities for Each Grade Level:
Kindergarten: Dive into nursery rhymes like Little Bo Peep and Hey Diddle Diddle to introduce STEM concepts through story-based challenges.
First Grade: Explore the fascinating world of bats with activities related to Stellaluna and Amara and the Bats. These lessons focus on flight, habitats, and problem-solving.
Second Grade: Investigate the science of flight with paper airplanes, inspired by books like The Great Paper Caper and Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot. Students can experiment with aerodynamics and engineering design.
Third Grade: Focus on structural design by exploring treehouses, using stories like I Wanna New Room and Everything You Need for a Treehouse to build and test different structures.
Fourth Grade: Delve into bridges with the books Secret Engineer and Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing, where students will design and test their own bridges.
Fifth Grade: Learn about cars and mechanics with Gus’s Garage and If I Built a Car, allowing students to explore how machines work through hands-on challenges.
By pairing activities and books together, students will gain a deeper understanding of the concepts while practicing problem-solving and critical thinking.
Week 3: Halloween STEM ACTIVITIES AND CHALLENGES
As October progresses, you can infuse Halloween fun into your STEM lessons. Week 3 is all about introducing fun and spooky challenges while keeping STEM at the core.
Themes and Activities for Each Grade Level:
Kindergarten: Use I Need My Monster as a starting point to have students design and create their own monsters. This activity allows young learners to explore creativity while practicing basic engineering skills.
First Grade: With Creepy Carrots! as the inspiration, students can engineer a fence to contain the Creepy Carrots using popsicle sticks and clothespins.
Second Grade: The popular book Room on the Broom inspires students to design and test broomsticks that can hold the most passengers (candy pumpkins or pumpkin manipulatives).
Third Grade: The story Monster Trouble! will kick off a challenge where students design and build monster traps, encouraging them to think critically about problem-solving and design.
Fourth Grade: Using the legend of Sleepy Hollow, students can build pumpkin catapults, testing physics concepts like force and motion.
Fifth Grade: Inspired by Spookley the Square Pumpkin, students will design and build pumpkins using different 3D shapes.
Week 4: More Halloween STEM ACTIVITIES AND CHALLENGES
Halloween excitement carries into the final week of October with more themed STEM activities that challenge students’ creativity and engineering skills.
Themes and Activities for Each Grade Level:
Kindergarten: Create haunted houses inspired by How to Build a Haunted House, allowing students to design spooky structures while practicing basic engineering and shapes.
First Grade: Students can explore creativity and problem-solving with the Halloween book Creepy Crayon!, where they can design their own spooky crayon characters.
Second Grade: Finish the month by creating friendly monsters inspired by How I Met My Monster, encouraging students to think about design, colors, and materials.
Third Grade: Inspired by How to Catch a Monster, students will focus on creating monster-catching contraptions, testing different designs for effectiveness.
Fourth Grade: Halloween-inspired marble cauldrons based on Strega Nona or Boo Stew allow students to experiment with building and physics as they design a device to hold a cauldron that can support the most marbles.
Fifth Grade: End the month with skeleton-themed challenges from Funny Bones, where students practice print making.
Planning Tips for the Month
Make Connections Across Weeks: The first two weeks focus on connecting STEM challenges, and the Halloween-themed activities in the last two weeks build on these foundational skills. This approach reinforces learning while keeping the lessons fresh and exciting.
Incorporate Storytelling: Many of the recommended activities are paired with books, which not only enhance literacy but also provide context for STEM challenges. Use read-alouds to spark curiosity before diving into the hands-on portion.
Utilize the Engineering Design Process or Scientific Method: Encourage students to follow these processes throughout each challenge, helping them develop a structured approach to problem-solving and experimentation.
Reuse Materials: Many of these challenges can be completed with simple, reusable materials like paper, cardboard, and building blocks, making them cost-effective and accessible for any classroom.
By following these plans, you’ll be able to provide a rich, engaging STEM experience for your students throughout October, while keeping the activities aligned with seasonal themes and learning goals.
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