Building With Bricks Introduction to STEAM Challenges Session 3 

In this fun, challenging ongoing class, students will be presented with a new brick building STEAM challenge each week to enhance their design, engineering, communication and problem solving-skills. Past builders in this course have ranged in ability level, mostly beginners who are able to follow my verbal and visual instructions for building. The challenges require basic bricks (DUPLOS work, too) without motors or switches. 

Learners are welcome to join any week or every week! No worries or anticipation when it comes to the challenges being too difficult or too easy. I adjust each lesson according to the learners' level of building.

1. Week of June 27: Brick Built Country or State Flag Challenge: (Art) Students will be challenged to build at least one flag that represents their country or state.  I will ask them their state or country, but for security purposes, will not ask them to share any other personal information. After learners successfully build one flag, they can build flags from other countries or states or change their design. Supplies: small baseplates in various colors, or one large baseplate, bricks, paper to plan their design.

2. Week of July 4: Soil Layer Model Challenge: (Earth Science) Students will learn about the different layers of soil in the earth and will be challenged to build a 3-D model to represent the layers. Supplies: colored bricks (green, tan, brown, black, gray and white) Different colored bricks can be substituted if necessary for the different layers.

3. Week of July 11: Brick Building Rainbow Challenge: (Art) Students will learn the order of the colors in a rainbow and challenged to build a model of a rainbow in the various shapes. Roy, G, Biv. Supplies: baseplate, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue and purple bricks, paper to draw their design.
 
4. Week 4 of July 18: Marble Maze Engineering Challenge: (Engineering) Students will be challenged to create a marble maze out of bricks that meets specific design criteria. Supplies: 10x10 baseplate, marble or small round ball, colored pencils, the printed planning graph paper (regular paper is okay), 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, etc. bricks (okay to use 2X2, 2x4, 2x6 , etc.)

5. Week of July 25: Math Game Challenge: (Math) Students will be challenged to create objects out of a designated number of bricks that meet specific design criteria. Examples: Build a tall structure using all 20 of your bricks or a letter of the alphabet using half of your bricks.  Supplies: Math Challenge printable (printed before class), fine point marker or pen (pencil doesn't show up in the camera), colored pencils, bricks, ruler

6. Week of August 1: Coding with Bricks Algorithm Game Challenge: (Technology) Students will learn about basic coding as they are challenged to create a “Brick Building Coding Game” using direction prompts and commands. Supplies: printed command paper (both pages) & pencil or crayons, bricks, large base plate, small objects/toys (optional) for the computer game board. NOTE: PLEASE cut the direction/movement cards apart before class. If you don’t have a printer, fold a piece of paper and cut it apart so your learner has several small squares before class. Write direction arrows in the squares like in the example that follows on page 6. If you don’t have a printer, you will need to help you child draw a game board like the one pictures. It should have squares with small objects on some of them.
 
7. Week August 8: Zip Line Challenge: (Engineering) Students will use critical thinking and engineering skills as they design, build and launch a mini figure on a zip line tied to two objects in the room. They will use this zip line to answer the questions, “How much can it hold? How does weight affect speed? And why?” Please help your child cut, tie the string and knot it. Supplies: string or cord, scissors to cut the cord, one mini figure, and bricks, including a few with arches if available.

8. Week of August 15 LAST CHALLENGE for session 3: Catapult Launch Challenge: (Engineering) Students will learn about tension, levers and measuring as they are challenged to build a brick catapult that launches small objects. Supplies: small rubber band, small objects to launch (1 inch or less), ruler, paper, pencil, small baseplate, bricks.

After week 8, I will start a new session. It might be on a different day at a different time, but the challenges will be mostly the same in case your learner missed any or would like to do them again. I look forward to meeting your child. ~Teacher Sharon