User Generated Education

I love celebrating the holidays and calendar events with my gifted students from my bilingual, Title 1 school. I ask them to make artifacts and displays that showcase both their talents and the holiday (see my blog posts about Dia de las Muertos and Pi Day for examples.) Not only are the projects fun, engaging, and exciting, they also provide opportunities for students to gain STEM/STEAM/STREAM knowledge and skills that address interdisciplinary standards. For this year, 2022, they created displays that included components for Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa. To do so, they . . .

• researched different components of the holidays, and created posters to go with the displays
• used art and engineering to make kinaras, gingerbread houses, and dreidels
• wired and used LEDs to light up their kinaras and gingerbread houses
• programmed micro:bits and Circuit Playgrounds to go with their displays

Introduction

I live in New Mexico. Knowledge of Hanukah and Kwanzaa is limited by our state population. so I began this project with holiday themed Kahoot quizzes (the kids love Kahoots). I think Kahoot quizzes are a great way to introduce new information to students. Here is a list of the ones I did with students:

• https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays/0a011bba-b79e-4044-9374-af7092aacc80
• https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays/332f63a4-e53d-45a1-8c87-c2328244c78d
• https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays-around-the-world/939312a6-cbca-4e4e-abdd-777433dc9846

During the quizzes, I visited websites to show students more information about the content being covered.

ELA Common Core Standards

• Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being and that are basic to a particular topic.

Researching the Different Winter Holidays

This is is the R in STREAM which translates into reading and writing. “STREAM adds one more layer to STEM and STEAM: reading and wRiting. Advocates of STREAM see literacy as an essential part of a well-rounded curriculum, as it requires critical thinking as well as creativity. STREAM projects are similar to STEM or STEAM, but fold in the components of reading and writing” (STEM vs. STEAM vs. STREAM: What’s the Difference?).

After selecting from a list of holiday-related topics, students researched, selected key points, and found applicable images to create posters for the displays. Here are the posters they created (noting that we are a bilingual Spanish class so some of them are in Spanish):

ELA Common Core Standards

• Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
• Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
• Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being and that are basic to a particular topic.

Hanukah Dreidels

Kathy Ceceri developed the Circuit Playground Dreidel – https://learn.adafruit.com/CPX-Mystery-Dreidel/overview. Kathy has them cut out their cardstock dreidels from a PDF. I created a template in Cricut so they could be cut out ahead of time. Here is a link to it https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/6380fecebf31eaf51e587127. Due to the complexity of the code, students were provided with the one developed by Kathy.

Another kind of dreidel was made using CDs – see https://minds-in-bloom.com/make-dreidel-out-of-cd/.

Finally, students get to play the dreidel game (happening this coming week).

Standards Addressed

Next Generation Science Standards – Engineering

• Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

Social Studies Standard

• Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity.

National Core Arts Standards

• Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
• Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
• Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.

Making Kinaras

“The kinara is a seven-branched candleholder used in Kwanzaa celebrations in the United States. During the week-long celebration of Kwanzaa, seven candles are placed in the kinara—three red on the left, three green on the right, and a single black candle in the center. The word kinara is a Swahili word that means candle holder. The seven candles represent the Seven Principles (or Nguzo Saba) of Kwanzaa. Red, green, and black are the symbolic colors of the holiday” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinara).

Students created the kinara by making tissue paper candle holders to make the kinara candles. See the Lighting section below on how they were lighted.

Standards Addressed

Social Studies Standard

• Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity.

Making Gingerbread Houses

Making gingerbread houses is typically associated with Christmas time and it is a great activity for students. I purchased kits at deeply discounted websites like Five Below prior to the Christmas session. This means that the kits are quite old but they aren’t for eating, they are for display. To add another element of fun, I cut out the doors and filled them with Isomalt. This permitted students to add lights inside to micmic how a house might look like during Christmas (see next section on lighting).

Standards Addressed

Next Generation Science Standards – Engineering

• Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

National Core Arts Standards

• Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
• Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
• Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.

Lighting Up the Kwanzaa Kinaras and Gingerbread Houses

Students learned some basics of electrical circuits using blinking LEDs. For their Kwanzaa Kinaras, they made simple LED/3V Lithium battery connections – see https://youtu.be/pIDB56RYT5M on how to do this.

To light up the inside of the gingerbread houses, the students combined 3 pre-wired LEDs (resistor built in) and a 9v battery in a series circuit (there wasn’t enough power for more than 3 in the circuit). One of the pre-wired blinking lights was placed in each of the gingerbread houses. The basics of how to do this can be found via this tutorial – https://youtu.be/DcN0Xlw7nko.

During the process of making and testing their circuits, we discussed how circuits worked, polarity, and conductive/insulting materials. The following video can help explain electrical circuits to younger students – https://youtu.be/HOFp8bHTN30

Standards Addressed

Next Generation Science Standards – Energy

• Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

Lighting and Signage Using micro:bits

micro:bits were used to create signs wishing happy holidays. They were also used to light up Neopixel rings and strips.Here are some resources for the micro:bit component of the display:

• micro:bit Holiday Activities – https://microbit.org/news/2020-12-03/microbit-holiday-activities/
• Using Neopixels with the micro:bit – https://support.microbit.org/support/solutions/articles/19000130206-using-neopixels-with-the-micro-bit
• Sample Neopixel Makecode – https://makecode.microbit.org/72931-87952-73243-42587 and https://makecode.microbit.org/_VbyT1DT7uDKp

Standards Addressed

Computer Science Standards

• Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.
• Modify, remix, or incorporate portions of an existing program into one’s own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.

Next Generation Science Standards – Energy

• Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

Math Connection

Although, I didn’t do so this year, I have included a math component to gingerbread house making in the past whereby students needed to learn about and calculate the perimeter and area of their creations (see Gingerbread House Making: A Fun and Engaging Cross-Curricular Lesson).