STEAM News
Foundation Engineering Challenge!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom 🌴
Our Foundation students have been busy blending literacy with hands-on engineering this week! After enjoying the classic rhythmic story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, the children faced a "towering" STEAM challenge of their own.
Inspired by the alphabet’s race to the top of the coconut tree, our young engineers were tasked with designing and building their very own trees. The goal? To see how many magnetic alphabet tiles their structures could hold before they went "Boom Boom!"
There was plenty of excitement (and a few tumbles!) as students experimented with balance, stability, and strong foundations. It was a wonderful way to practice letter recognition while developing problem-solving and fine motor skills.
Year 1/2 STEAM Explorers!
Hardware vs. Software 🔌
Our Year 1/2 students have been diving into the digital world during their recent STEAM sessions. To better understand how technology works, the children have been exploring the fundamental difference between hardware (the parts of a computer you can touch) and software (the programs and instructions that tell the hardware what to do).
To bring these concepts to life, the students turned into "tech detectives." Using a pile of retail catalogues, they hunted for various devices and applications, carefully cutting them out and sorting them into categories.
Year 3/4
The Year 3/4 students worked collaboratively in small groups to investigate different types of soil, including sand, loam, and clay.
Each group selected one type of soil and conducted an experiment to test how quickly water could pass through and be absorbed into the soil before reaching an empty cup underneath. Students carefully timed and observed the results, comparing the drainage abilities of each soil type.
As a class, we discovered that loam is the best type of soil because it absorbs and holds water the longest, making it ideal for supporting plant growth.
Regards,
Dorothy Markou & Jess Dijanesic
STEAM Teachers