At little late....Leprechauns and Sock Monkeys!

This is a STEM project, with the original idea coming out of Florida.  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  The project asks students to problem solving in a holistic  manner using what they already know to 'hinge' onto and perhaps find a solution that meets the criteria.  First the students heard a story of Clever Tom and the Leprechaun. Although Tom appears to solve the problem, it turns out that the leprechaun was just too clever and got away with the gold!

In this project, each pair of students does find the leprechaun's pot of gold BUT must cross over the river to get away.  The problem is all the students have is that pot of gold to build the bridge.

Planning happens before the testing.

What works on paper may not work out with the real materials.

I love the conversations that happen...

..and the moment when it all goes wrong!

The teams must co-operate...

listen and try more than once.

Was the criteria met?  The bridge had to be at least 3 cm in height!

Here's some happy faces!

This might mean there was success!

On the theme of leprechauns, there was a directed drawing lesson as well as filling out an application to become a leprechaun.

The students had to answer the following questions:

What tricks would you play of St. Patrick's Day? and

Where would you hide your pot of gold?

Everyone can be a leprechaun on St. Paddy's Day.

We did learn who the real St. Patrick was and learned that he was not Irish!

Who knew??!!

This was the busyness of a class room full of students and many mother and grandmother helpers.

Today was the day that had been marked on the calendar at the beginning of the month, but the students didn't know what exactly was going to happen.

With lots of help, they sewed sock monkeys!

There was tails, and arms and ears and snouts to sew on after each of those parts was filled with stuffing.

There were many adult hands to help start the sewing, tie up some knots and perhaps untangle some thread.  It was a busy, busy time,

but with a 'can do' attitude, 24 sock monkeys were born!

Look at that concentration!

Happiness is doing something hard!

The Luck of the Irish Didn't Show Up in Our Room!

 There has been a lot of mysterious goings on in our classroom this month.  Every day, there have been little signs that we have been having night visitors of the small, green, sneaky kind.  In the morning when the students come into the class, they have found glitter, small footprints, green sequins, green pom poms and such strewn around.  Mrs. Matheson had had enough!  She asked each and every student to create a trap because she was convinced that leprechauns had been behind the break-ins.

Last Friday, the students brought in their 'traps' and explained their designs to their classmates.

They varied in size,

and plan,

and the materials used.

Each one had some shiny thing to act as bait,

and some element of surprise so that

the pesky little guys could be caught!

Each student chose where they wanted to set up their trap.

This fellow decided he would put it up on his desk and even created a ladder for the leprechaun to use to climb up to the top!

When we came into the class this morning, this is what we saw!

The contents of the traps were strewn about, glitter spilled,

little footprints going from one spot to another...

traps destroyed and all of the gold, coins and gems that were meant to lure the leprechaun were gone!

It took a while to clean up the mess, but the old saying rang true...

"Many hands make light work!"

But that glitter sure does hang around...one little guy needed to be vacuumed off, or he would have left fairy dust everywhere he went!

The mystery was solved as one girl found a note rolled up and tied with a ribbon on the teacher chair.

It helped us know that there had actually been four leprechauns coming in, and that they were trying to do us a favour.  Thank you O'Rourke, O'Toole, O' Brian, and Seamus for fixing my chair!

Dear children,

We are so sorry that we made a mess of your classroom.

We just couldn’t resist looking inside all of the lovely boxes

that we found scattered around the room.  Thank you for

all the fun!  Mind you, you really must be much more careful.

There were sticky tape pieces that were difficult to walk on,

lots of cramped little spaces and even a couple areas that

were difficult to climb out of.  Whatever was that slippery

stuff in that plastic bag?  It took three of us to pull O’Brian

out of there.  We loved the food that you left.  It was lovely

to have something to snack on as we worked on fixing that

broken chair.  It took us weeks to figure out how we were

going to get the tools into the class!  You might have noticed

that we had been in.  We really aren’t known for being tidy

little fellows!  It did make us wonder, though, why you children

would be so careless with your valuables.  We decided that

if you couldn’t look after the gold coins, gold nugget and shiny

stones, then we would just teach you a lesson.  We’ve taken them

ourselves to add to our own pots of gold.  Now that the chair

is fixed, we’ll not bother you again.

                                                 Sincerely,

                                               O’Rourke, O’ Toole,

                                               O’Brian and Seamus