SUNNYSIDE SCOOP OCTOBER, 2016 Principal Points October 2016 Hands on Learning Sunnyside Families, What a great start to the school year it has been. Everyday I’m able to watch as our students come into the building smiling, laughing, and ready to learn. As a building we continue to increase the amount of technology our students have access to. This year we now have Chromebook carts in every homeroom between 2nd and 5th as well as adding some makerspace carts to our building. Last December I wrote about the Makerspace Movement as one of the ways schools are integrating hands-on learning into classrooms. Sunnyside now has three makerspace carts, and will soon be adding a fourth, to the building. We have a Lego cart, an Edison Robot (Lego based robotics programming) and Lego cart, and a Make-Do (cardboard creations) cart for teachers to pull into their classrooms to enhance learning. We will also be adding a fourth card with Bee-Bots to focus on primary programming skills as well. It’s exciting to watch as teachers pull in a cart to change the way students learn. For instance, in one of our first grade classrooms a teacher pulled the Lego cart into the classroom and had students build a butterfly in partners to show symmetry tying in a math lesson into the science lessons they were learning about butterflies. In second grade a teacher was using Legos to teach partner skills as students were able to build a rocket out of Legos. Students partnered together to design, create a materials list, and construct their rocket. While the skill they were working on was planning together with a partner, they engaged in basic levels of engineering and planning as part of the lesson. In another second grade classroom a teacher began using QRcodes for students to find good fit books as part of their online reading practice. These are just a few of the examples teachers are using to help students prepare for the digital world they now live in. Having technology for the sake of having technology will never be our goal. It is our goal to converge best practices of instruction with innovation. It is about developing a pathway for our students to become leaders and innovators, especially in their formative elementary years. It’s going to be a great year ahead! Principal Nathan Flansburg
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