It has been a long time since I posted. I apologize. It's been a busy year! We have a new model of supporting teachers that entails me to drive to 5 schools to support teachers. At one of those schools, we worked on infusing creativity with robots into a culminating social studies activity where students combine learning about communities, maps, map skills, and gardens!
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| Image Credits: P., JR. (2008). Dutch garden. |
Students worked in groups to create a map of a garden. Students choose from various types of gardens - vegetable and fruit, English, Japanese, Botanical, and more. They created a rough draft, researched plants and effective layouts, and designed decorative structures such as benches, water features, gazebos, paths, and the material that makes up paths (brick, gravel, dirt, concrete, asphalt). Then, they drew their garden on a large piece of butcher paper. After crafting their design, they colored it and programmed Sphero robots to give a tour of their garden.
There were two must-haves in their tours. First, the robot had to travel on the path (the best it could - we discovered that wax crayons affected the accuracy of the robots). Second, the robot had to stop at six plants and provide details about the plant. The students LOVED this project. I've done many creative projects, but this one engaged students differently. I am still trying to figure out why! Every student engaged with their group, communicating their ideas, collaborated on the design, placement, and color of each element added to the map, and contributed to the critical thinking involved in debugging their programs. When conflicts cropped up, students talked about them and compromised on how to solve their disagreements - in second grade!
Here are a few videos of their completed work! As you can see, many of them were enamored with an English Garden. 😄
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