A student example from “S.C.A.M.P.E.R. the Holidays” in which the 3rd grader designed a snowman made out of globes
I’m dusting off an old post from last December in which I offered a set of PDF’s that you could use to prompt some divergent thinking amongst your students. These sheets are based on the thinking tool, S.C.A.M.P.E.R., which I explain in my post, “S.C.A.M.P.E.R. the Holidays“. My 1st through 5th grade Gifted and Talented classes really enjoyed these last year. I’m at a new school this year, so I get to use them again! Also, if you happen to be looking for some other free holiday downloads, you might want to check out my post from last week on “Holiday QR Codes“.
UPDATE: You can see more student examples from S.C.A.M.P.E.R. the Holidays here. Also, you can also download some augmented reality holiday cards for your students here.
For those of you new to this blog, I am devoting Fridays during the holiday season to recommending “Gifts for the Gifted”. You can see the three posts that I have done so far here, here and here. You can also visit my Pinterest board on Games for Gifted Students. A lot of these are not just for gifted students, but would be appreciated by many children – and adults.
Today’s recommendation happens to be one that I have not tried, yet. But, I am ordering this kit for my 10-year-old daughter because it looks like the perfect combination of imagination and engineering. The Little Bits Holiday Kit retails for $49, and includes the following items:
A double sided instruction sheet with quick start guide and project suggestions
A custom-made 9V battery + cable
A 9V battery connector.
Custom plastic screwdriver
7 littleBits:
• power
• pulse
• light wire
• dc motor
• bright led
• wire x2
The list above does not really do the kit justice, however. There is so much potential in the various combinations of these parts, some of which is shown in the video below. And, if you have a child or group of students that might be interested, Little Bits is also offering a “What are You Making for the Holidays?” challenge with a deadline of December 11th. Inventors of any age are invited to submit sketches of a possible Little Bits design, and the winners will receive all of the parts to build their inventions.
If your child is interested in building, inventing, and designing, this could be a great gift to put under the tree!
I found out about this fabulous artist, Marta Altes, from the author of the blog, “This Sydney Life“. Like yesterday’s post, my resource is not categorized as an educational blog, but I immediately thought of classroom connections when I saw the artwork of Marta Altes. I love the whimsy and the simple, but unique, quality of her artwork. Displaying some of her pictures would be a great way to jumpstart some creative thinking in your classroom. If you have ever used the creative thinking tool, S.C.A.M.P.E.R., you might see this as a perfect example of “Put it to another use”. Can you imagine how some gifted students might run with this idea?
The blog “Science is Beauty” recently posted this great infographic poster created by Dwayne Godwin and Jorge Cham. I like how some of the numbers are given comparisons, such as how the 100 thousand miles of axons in our brain would be equivalent to 4 trips around the Earth. I think it might be fun to have the students come up with comparisons for some of the other facts, integrating a bit of math with science and research. Once they have delved a bit more into this infographic, you could assign them to create their own poster about another amazing organ, such as the heart or eye. You can check out Richard Byrne’s post on “Three Free Tools for Creating Infographics” here. Or, they could use Glogster Edu to make a multimedia poster.
“Fall Fun for Fast Finishers” is a free packet of 20 open-ended task cards from Rachel Lynette at Minds in Bloom. Her packet is available for free download from Teachers Pay Teachers. You do have to be a member in order to receive the download, but it is free to register.
I love one of the sample cards that Rachel displays in her blog post, which asks you to pretend you are Autumn (the season) and you are running for president against the other three seasons. What a creative idea!
On a side note, Teachers Pay Teachers can be a goldmine for lesson ideas. There are many, many free activities available. It is well worth registering.
These minimalistic posters, from Hydrogene Portfolio, could be good “hooks” for your students. They could: research the women on the posters, try to find more women to add to the set and develop similar posters, discuss why there is not a set of six men who changed science (or, is there?), create sets of posters for another group (such as 6 children who changed the world or 6 books that changed literature). Kaplan’s Depth and Complexity icons could be easily used: How did science change over time as a result of the work of these women? What ethics were involved in their contributions? Does everyone see their work as positive? What rules were changed as a result of their work? To create a poster, you can try Glogster Edu or Big Huge Labs.
