We are so privileged to have such a close working relationship with the St. Luke Catholic School, especially with the kindergarten team. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get an inside look into the daily classroom programming. Recently, the kindergarten classes went on a field trip to see the musical "Red's in The Hood", an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. The children were so excited and their largest takeaway was the role of The Big Bad Wolf, showcased to us by howling in wolf packs during our outside time. To expand on their learning, we introduced a STEAM challenge to create a Three Little Pigs house to withstand The Wolf. We set out a creation station with open ended materials, such as tape, Q-tips, popsicle sticks, cards, bricks, paper straws, pipe cleaners, coffee filters, paper, etc.
The goal was simple: use the materials to create a house where the provided pig isn't accessible to the wolves (we invited other children to take up the role and blow on the finished houses). The children got to work, creating with the materials. Grayson, Theo, and Nicolas discovered that they could fortify their building by threading the sticks and paper straws through the holes in the bricks. Katelyn used a straw, bricks, tape, and tissue paper to create a camera to put on the outside of their house so the pig could see the wolves coming before trying to get in. Raelyn used tape, coffee filters, and straws to make a cocoon around the pig so that none of him was exposed. Alice and Zoey used the cups that were holding the materials to create an enclosed dome, while adding a straw so that the pig could still breathe inside. Finnigan also took the approach of the more materials the more protection. He took every material and dumped it confidently into a pile in front of him, grinning ear to ear. When he realized that the wolves could still blow his pile over, he started over with a more structured approach, but still beaming with the excitement of creating!
We were so impressed by their creative solutions to protect their pigs and loved seeing their level of engagement with one another to use collaborative problem-solving skills. We have noticed that this class has a large engineering mind and thrives in their engagement with STEAM activities.
If you are looking for science-based activities to try at home with your children, National Geographic Kids is a great place to start: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/science
