STEAM at UTES: Kinder and 1st turn trash into homes

We have been collecting recyclable materials for the past several weeks. I use these in many of the projects in my room from the egg drop to Rube Goldberg machines to this house project! We begin by studying different types of homes and what makes homes sturdy in the context of the environment they are in. I use BrainPopJr for most of this and we watch that as a whole group. We talk briefly about why homes are taller in the city and longer in the country and why it is important to take the environment into consideration when building a home. They decide on the type of home that they are going to build; they draw up plans for this home in their STEAM journal; they are put into teams to make the final plans; and then they start the Big Build. Their challenge is to build a home that will stand up to tornado and earthquake. My class periods are 45 minutes long and I usually allow 2 class periods to plan, 3 to build, and one for the big test. Sometimes the big test ends up taking two days if several need to be rebuilt. We use a large fan to test against tornado and a pan of jello (with plastic wrap on top - this is a lesson I learned the first time I did it without... what a mess!) :) Testing day is always very exciting so I recommend you find someone to help out with it if possible. Plus, it's cute as can be so it's fun to watch. This project is a basis for many projects in the future years that these students will do as they expand into real architecture and Google SketchUp later in 4th and 5th grade.