STEM-tember: Book Companions & Challenges

A little over a year ago, I started feeling confident enough about my work with STEM in a primary classroom, to venture into creating resources. Right around that time I met a wonderful character named Rosie.

h

Click here to see it on Amazon!

You might know her as Rosie Revere Engineer written by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts. This book set me on the road to creating STEM (actually STREAM) book companions. Andrea Beaty's message in Rosie Revere is so poignant (in fact, I loved it so much I quoted it in my Teacher of the Year essay) and I wanted to create a resource that helped students dig into the text to pull out this message and then apply it as they participated in a STEM challenge.

Rosie introduced me to her classmate Iggy Peck Architect....

Click here to see it on Amazon!

....and most recently I was able to make the acquaintance of another classmate, Ada Twist Scientist!

Click here to see it on Amazon!

This summer I was inspired to create several other companions for stories with equally as impactful meanings. I opt for stories with a meaningful message over shallow, gimmicky storybooks. Even if you don't purchase or use the STEM companions I've created for these storybooks, I'd suggest adding any or all of them to your classroom library because they are simply lovely!

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Have you heard of Going Places by Peter and Paul Reyonlds? Anything Peter Reynolds is bound to be a hit in the world of primary and this book is for your dreamers! I use this one to discuss thinking outside of the boxes and looking for ideas in the world around you.

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet is the perfect STEM challenge for the Thanksgiving holidays. This is the true story of Tony Sarg, the puppeteer responsible for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I love that this story presents the idea of improving upon successes to make them even better. I also love that it's not your typical Thanksgiving holiday activity!

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Mr. Ferris and His Wheel is the captivating, fact-filled storybook by Kathryn Gibbs Davis. This story illustrates an engineers motivation, dedication, and drive to make his vision a reality!

Click here to see it on Amazon! (April Jones Prince)

Click here to see it on Amazon! (Phil Bildner)

Twenty-One Elephants is the story of P.T. Barnum marching his elephants across the Brooklyn Bridge shortly after it was built to prove it's stability to doubtful New Yorkers.

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Happy Birthday Madame Chapeau is another lovely story by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts. In this challenge students will design and create a birthday hat for Madame Chapeau! Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with Andrea Beaty and David Roberts?!

Over the next year I plan to complete STEM book companions and challenges for:

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis:

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis:

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Papa's Mechanical Fish by Candace Fleming:

Click here to see it on Amazon!

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara:

Click here to see it on Amazon!

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires:

Click here to see it on Amazon!

Click here to see all of my STEM Book Companions and Challenges!

STEM-tember: Engineering Design Process

Welcome to Day two of STEM-tember here at The Curious Catfish!

The Engineering Design Process is a series of steps that engineering teams use as they solve problems. The process is cyclical, meaning that engineers repeat the steps as many times as needed, making improvements along the way.

The engineering design process is to engineers what the scientific method is to scientists. When I started doing STEM activities with kindergarten and first grade students the prospect of using this process with my mini-MacGuyver's felt preposterous. Over the years I've come to realize that this process is intuitive. Essentially, it's how our minds naturally work through problem solving and my students have fully embraced it each year.

So let me break it down for you!

Students will move through these steps naturally when they are problem-solving. Teachers orchestrate the "Ask" and "Imagine" stage, then hand it over to students to create their own solutions.

During the "Plan" and "Create" phase I leave students alone to work with their partners and collaborate. Occasionally, I push in to question their idea or design and challenge them consider their choices. If I see they are making a choice that will fail, I allow them to continue down that path. They can reflect and make changes later but I think it's very important to allow students to fail as long as I'm there to foster critical thinking about that failure and then question them into thinking about how they can approach the task from a different perspective.

The "Improve" and "Present/Discuss" phases are my favorite! Primary students are surprisingly resilient through struggle and failure when they are engaged in an exciting or interesting task. For the first few STEM challenges you may have tears but after they realize it's not the end of the world when you blow their paper house away using your big, bad blowdryer; they learn to laugh and jump right back into figuring out why their idea didn't work and what they can do to accomplish the task. Questioning them about their choice of materials and listening them discuss what went wrong with their partner during this phase will teach you a lot about their reasoning and independent critical thinking skills.

After each challenge I always facilitate a whole group discussion about what went well, what was challenging, what did you change. When appropriate, I also allow students to present/demonstrate their solution. This both models and leads to deeper thinking about the challenge.

All of these materials are available in my FREE STEM Starter Kit! Download it today as a guide to help you implement STEM in your classroom and join me for the next three days to learn about more STEM resources!

STEM-tember: What is STEM?

Happy STEM-tember! 

Hopefully you've taken the opportunity to get your STEM on this month! I'm ending this STEM-tember sharing with you what I've learned about implementing STEM in a primary classroom over the past three years. I'll also share resources I love and a variety of ways to begin adding STEM activities to your repertoire. Check back each day this week for a new post full of ideas and resources!

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. This cross-curricular approach to learning is exciting because it stimulates the creative and investigative nature of young learners! 


Teachers facilitate learning by asking open-ended questions and allowing students to explore potential solutions using a variety of materials. As students work with partners or in groups, teachers help students question, predict, explore, observe, investigate, create, and reflect.


Early exposure to STEM helps students develop important critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It also provides a unique opportunity for all students to be challenged as well as learn to cope with struggle and failure as they work through potential solutions. Bring on the GROWTH MINDSET moments!

Now that we know what STEM is, let's explore the difference between STEM, STEAM, & STREAM.

The term STEM started to grow in the US around 2006. The basis of this movement was the growing concern about the readiness/preparedness of our students for the high-tech jobs of the future. Soon after, a push for adding "arts" and transforming STEM to STEAM began.

Any teacher knows that without the ability to read and write, it is impossible to be fully prepared for any career. Standards for Science and Technical subjects even reference reading and writing. This brings us to the need to add "reading" to the acronym. Hence, STREAM was born. 

Now that we know what STEM is and what the difference is between the acronyms we're ready to learn more about the Engineering Design Process. This cyclical process will walk our young learners through STEM challenges and encourage them to remain engaged through struggle and failure. Check back tomorrow for more information about the Engineering Design Process!

All of this information is available in my Free STEM Starter Kit!