Protostorming

What a fantastic start to the year! My colleagues and I decided to try something new for our STEM/STEAM lessons. Our primary classrooms are grouped as double units; each pair of classrooms is joined by a large glass double door. We decided to join two classes at a time, so that means over 50 students all working together. 

I was a bit worried that it might be a bit ambitious at the start of the school year, but our students really stepped up and I was suprised by how calm it was despite the large numbers! 

To kick off the year, we had a quick recap on what STEM is, and then we were straight into creating. The learning intentions were to practice working as a team and using our resilience strategies when things didn't go as planned. 

As part of starting off the school year smoothly, students had already been tuned into what resilience looks, sounds and feels like with their class teachers:

By Year 3 Students

By Year 3 Students

Each table group had a different material and they had a short amount of time to brainstorm some words to describe the properties of their item. The items included straws, stockings, paper napkins, cotton balls, icy pole sticks, toothpicks, rubber bands and string. They then needed to quickly draw and write some ideas for what they could make using that item as the main (not sole) ingredient.

I then introduced the concept of protostorming (inspired and taken from Questacon's makerspace sessions during STEM X Academy). Students were instructed to use any available materials to rapidly build lots of rough, unfinished prototypes or models. The focus was on quantity not quality, and the goal was just to get them creating.  They loved it and came up with so many fantastic ideas!