Leap Year STEM Bundle

STEM activities provide the perfect opportunity for hands-on collaborative work. Students think critically and creatively and build on their mistakes to move their learning forward. A STEM experience is a perfect place to learn to “Try, Try Again!

This bundle contains all three of my Challenge resources - Big Idea Challenge Scoot, Leap Year Close Reading and Comprehension and the Leap Year STEM Challenge. Everything is included for you to organise and run a Leap Year STEM Challenge week - just print and go!

A STEM Challenge is a huge hit with my students. Their eyes light up when they see a STEM challenge on our agenda and your students will too! There is just something special about planning and building your own work and testing it to. It is so much fun to watch the concentration on their faces as they work out what they want to do and how they are going to do it, and their joy when they succeed. This challenge is one you must try!

1. The Leap Year STEM Challenge

This STEM challenge is divided into two parts - a measuring and jumping activity and a design activity. Both activities have cross-curricular links with Maths, Literacy, Science, PE, IT and Design Technology, and draw on a range of skills including teamwork, leadership, prediction, inference, drawing conclusions, presentation of information etc.

Students begin with the jumping challenge, where they predict whether height makes a difference to the distance jumped, measure each other, plan their jump, carry out their tests and record the outcomes. Planning sheets, record sheets and graphs are provided.

The second part of the challenge sees the students finding out how a grasshopper can jump such great distances, and applying the science to their own design. Finally, they present their outcomes to the class, with fellow students peer assessing their work.

Students an use any materials they like - it is their design and part of the challenge is evaluating the brief and discussing, planning and delivering outcomes.

Contents:

• Cover Sheet
• Introduction
• Unit plan
• Lesson plans
• KWL chart
• Challenge task cards
• Task planning sheets
• Task record sheets
• Predictions sheets (differentiated)
• Graphing activity
• Conclusions sheets (differentiated)
• Grasshopper fact sheets
• data planning sheet
• Design planning sheet
• Blank poster
• Assessment rubric
• Terms of Use page

2. Leap Year Close Reading Comprehension

There are six essential skills needed for reading comprehension:

•Decoding

•Fluency

•Vocabulary

•Sentence Construction and Cohesion

•Reasoning and Background Knowledge

•Working Memory and Attention

The pack includes:

•Fact sheets on leap year

•Question sheet aligned to National Tests

•Cloze (gap filling) passages (suitable for ESL/EAL pupils)

•Dictionary activity (suitable for ESL/EAL pupils)

•Thesaurus activity (suitable for EAL/ESL pupils)

•Glossary

•Word wall

This resource is part of a growing bank of comprehension and close reading material that you can use to teach all of the above skills. The material is differentiated to meet a range of levels and abilities.

3. Big Idea Challenge Relay Scoot - Leap Year

The Big Idea Relay Challenge is a scoot game that gets students moving whilst practising their skills. It is a great alternative to a KWL chart and is a fun activity for students - they won't even know they're being assessed!

The Big Idea Relay can be used as a stand alone activity to assess what students' prior knowledge before the topic and level of learning and understanding at the end of the topic. It can be used with the leap year close reading comprehension pack to develop knowledge. Question cards are placed on tables around the room and students have a few minutes to answer a card before moving on to the next one. They record their answers. The topic is then taught and the relay repeated to assess learning.

A great way to assess what students know before a topic and what they have learned at the end.

All of the resources in this bundle are suitable for US, UK, Australian and Canadian audiences.

These are SUPER activities that your students will ask to be repeated over and over again! Don't leave it on the shelf until next leap year - use it regularly.