STEM Archives - Whimsy Workshop Teaching

Simple Art Projects: Free Downloads

January 6, 2019 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Looking for some super simple art projects?

These quick and easy art projects are a great way for students to be creative without a lot of prep.
TEACHER PREP DIRECTIONS:
These require very little prep! Most are on one page, so just make a copy for each student. You can use white paper and let students color, or copy on to colored paper. Thicker paper works best!
STUDENT DIRECTIONS:
Students just color, cut out the pieces and assemble. Sometimes I demonstrate how to assemble them, [Read More…]

Seasonal STEM with Partner Plays

November 13, 2017 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

My students LOVE doing STEM Challenges. We began the year working on Fairy Tale Challenges from THIS resource, and it was a big hit!
Now, we have added more fun by adding SEASONAL STEM projects!
SANTA STEM
The first ones we tried were all about Santa!

Each challenge is introduced with a partner play. This means we can integrate some literacy skills into the lessons. I have found that using partner plays give the STEM challenges context, and makes the building task much more [Read More…]

Social Emotional Learning in the Primary Classroom

October 25, 2017 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching 6 Comments

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
Years ago I would get some disapproving looks when I mentioned how much classroom time I dedicate to social emotional learning. “What about the curriculum! You’ll never get through it all if you don’t start right away!”
But I did get through it all, sometimes with time to spare. Why? I found that if we solidified expectations for kindness, inclusion and self-management early, and spent a LOT less time on disruptions through the year. Plus, we were shaping future citizens; it’s not [Read More…]

Mystery STEM: A Stem Game With A Twist

July 30, 2017 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching 2 Comments

Our classroom embraced STEM challenges this year in a big way.
We explored all kind of building, integrated STEM with other subject areas, and worked in multi-age groups.
We worked both in and outside the classroom on our STEM challenges.
The confidence and enthusiasm of our little engineers soared!
And now we’re adding MYSTERY STEM to add even more fun and rigor!

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The concept is simple! The mystery is the challenge: students won’t know what they have to build, or what their [Read More…]