The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs III: FREE LESSONS & PRICED

Q: Aside from the obvious, what can one do with toilet paper?

A: Build a nice nest, of course!

In this STEM design challenge, students work against a Criteria & Constraints list to build a nest of highest possible capacity using primarily super-cheap TP. Kids love this one because it's a little silly, really challenging, and a lot of fun! Inspiration sometimes comes from the strangest places! It's up to you whether to stay true to the suggested materials or branch out and do as the birds do, searching the ground for supplemental nest materials.

You can take this idea and run with it on your own, or you can find more support in the prepared lesson challenge or in the Easter STEM Olympics blog:

Materials List
Criteria & Constraints List
Discussion questions
Design analysis handouts
Modifications to increase/decrease difficulty for grades 2 - 8
Post-design extension ideas in the prepared lesson challenge

Nice Nest ($1 product)

Easter STEM Olympics ($5 product includes five challenges for the price of four)

Easter STEM Challenge Blog (Free blog includes details on Basket Bounce and four additional challenges)

Happy (almost) holidays, my friends. Have you noticed an excitement in the air? My students definitely have the Christmas Spirit, and are always thrilled to have some fun seasonal activities do to recognize it! I run Early Literacy Intervention groups with students from grades 1-3. While we do guided reading and writing, and play skill-building games, once in a while I do like to have them do some worksheets that I can keep a copy of in their files. We are currently working through both of the packages shown in the picture above and they are enthusiastic with the variety of activities at their 'just-right' level, too. Here is a close up of the North Pole Reading and Writing Fun preview:

...and one of the Nativity Reading and Writing Fun preview:

The kids are having a lot of fun with these, thanks to the wonderful clip art by Edu-clips.com. They can't wait to color the pictures! Each of these packages come with the following tip sheet: