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STEAM at Atco Elementary: Home Sweet Home

This LibGuide will provide a description and importance of what STEAM is and what it looks like on our K-1 school. It will list different activities that we do in our school that involve our new STEAM enrichment.

Suggested Book

Annotated Bibliography: 

Describes how  different animals build homes for themselves.

Additional books

Activity

Question

Can you create a home for an animal?                    

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Challenge Description: Students will choose from a variety of building materials to design and build an animal home for an animal of their choice. Examples of homes are a cave for a bear, nest for a bird, home for a human, doghouse for a dog, pond for a turtle, ocean for a fish, tree for a squirrel, or burrow for a bunny.

 

Suggested Materials: informational books about animal homes and habitats, variety of building materials such as Legos, base ten blocks, unifix/linking cubes, and pattern blocks.

Lesson Plan

LESSON PLAN

                                

Prime students’ background knowledge about animal homes by reading aloud an informational book of your choice.            

Hold a class discussion, allowing students to share what they already know about animal homes and what questions they still have. Ask students to share what they think animals need to survive and brainstorm different types of animal homes. Also, discuss how specific animal homes are related to meeting animals’ needs. Record their ideas.            

 

Introduce permitted materials and share the challenge instructions. Allow students time to build a variety of animal homes with partners or small groups.    

Hold a whole class closing discussion and reflection, allowing students to share what they created and what they learned about animal homes. Record their ideas.