Yesterday was a Professional Development day for the entire province. We are very lucky that we have the option of choosing to do some “self-directed” Pro-D, and that is what I did. Myself and a colleague spent the day with our school collection of Lego robots. We have 12 sets of Lego’s Wedo collection, as well as 12 extension kits.
I really wanted to explore these for their connections to the grade 4 curriculum. I could see obvious values for developing visual spatial, team building, cooperation, etc. My first thought was “these are amazing for grade 5 and simple machines outcomes!” I needed a bit more to show me how they could be used to tie specifically into grade 4.
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| The introductory build… |
I am happy to say I left the day with many grade 4 outcome tie ins….
Math: measure the area and perimeter, fractional parts, estimation
Language Arts: you can essentially write a story about anything, can’t you?
Science: I think these will be a great “intro to science fair” and I am planning on using them to teach the scientific process. The kits also offer many animal builds that can tie into my habitats unit.
Fine Arts: There is a few outcomes that refer to animation, leading me to….
Scratch! This is a FREE! program developed by MIT. It can be used on it’s own, but also, is compatible with the Lego Robots. The fish you see in this screen shot are being told to move around. They can also speak to each other if they happen to bump, or change colours…. It can play music or your own recordings. When a Lego Robot is connected, it can tell it what to do as well, with more options than the Wedo software.
My colleague and I challenged ourselves to build the Dancing Birds (that are in the photo above) and make them do more with the Scratch software.
