The Brackett Elementary School has a long history of involving families and students in a variety of enrichment events that are organized and executed by the active PTO STEM Committee. All are designed to get students engaged in activities that explore the many facets of STEM, enlarging their understanding and appreciation.
Family Math Nights were held throughout the fall and winter beginning with Kindergarten and first grade in October, then second and third grade in December, and ending with fourth and fifth grades in February. During these 90-minute events, caregivers and students worked on grade-appropriate math-logic games together. Flyers with “appetizers”, three age-appropriate math games, were distributed before each event to encourage Family Math Night attendance where the answers were revealed.
STEM Committee member Federico Fraschetti says that the goal of the Family Math Nights is to encourage families to have fun with math together. Each event was arranged by parent volunteers who prepared materials, set up tables and assisted families during the event. Older siblings even helped by running the “Win the jar” game, where each student guessed the number of objects in a jar (erasers, beans) and the closest guess won a prize. Each event had over 10 tables offering one or two games and room for each adult to work with their child independently. The attendees could try math, geometry, statistics and logic-based puzzles, perform “math magic”, and analyze and build paper Platonic solids. Examples of the games include Equation Search, Rolling Records, KenKen Puzzles, and Shape Race.
Every grade participated in the national education event Hour of Code during the week of February 12-16. The goal of this annual event is to provide students with a taste of computer programming. Organizer Tammy Kalt says that “...the activities, arranged as a series of games, are easy to explain to the students and rewarding for all involved.” Assisted by about 50 caregivers who volunteered in the classrooms, every student participated in one 40-minute age appropriate coding activity during the week.
First and second grade students played CodeMonkey, Jr. on their iPads where they would drag and drop arrows to give a monkey code/instructions to collect bananas and treasure chests. In the older grades the students used Chromebooks to play activities that became progressively more challenging. Fifth grade students typed out code with the help of prompts from their game. Some of the activities had short video clips from actual programmers that explained how coding was useful in the real world and how it helped to create the games that were being played. Games with themes such as Minecraft and Star Wars made coding feel more relevant and appealing.
The volunteers received grade-specific instructions a week before the event with a link to the game they would be leading. Ms. Kalt also was able to participate as a leader, and she observes that “...the students had an absolute blast! In just 40 minutes, students were able to figure out their activity and start writing code.They may be confused in the first few levels, but they get the hang of it quickly and by the end they are zooming through the material.”
Ms. Kalt adds that “...many volunteers return to participate year after year, teachers are very positive, and the students really look forward to it.” Additionally, “...it helps prepare our students to handle technology classes in middle school and beyond and introduces programming and coding fundamentals to students who wouldn’t have tried it otherwise.”
On March 15, Brackett held its annual STEM Night that includes the fourth and fifth grade Science Fair along with a variety of activities. In preparation for the Fair, STEM Committee members visit the classrooms to explain how each project should answer a question and have a hypothesis about something the young scientists hope to discover. The students choose the topics and may work in groups of two or three if they choose. Most of the projects are done at home. Before the project boards are displayed at STEM Night, the young scientists have the opportunity to present their work to their classmates.
This March there were over 70 projects. Examples of what the students were curious about include Rainbow in a Glass, Can Cats Learn from Previous Experiences, Cork Rocket, What is the Best Popping Popcorn?, Is Bounty Really the Quicker Picker Upper?, What Fruit Makes the Best Battery?, The Cockroach Maze Test, and Can Roots only Grow Down?.
The 17 activity stations, spread around the first and second floors of the school, were primarily staffed by parent volunteers and included things like 3D Printers, Dry Ice Fun, and Math Games. Stations were also manned by the Brackett Green Team, The Mystic River Watershed Association (MRWA), the Brackett 5th Grade Committee, and the Brackett Library Committee. STEM Committee member Jamie Strand reports that Touch a Brain and the LED Magnets station where students could create their own light-up magnets with LED bulbs and button batteries were very popular. Two astronomy related activities were new this year. The Curved Spacetime Table was an interactive display of solar system gravitational and orbital dynamics to visualize the main ideas of the theory of general relativity by A. Einstein. Parker Solar Space Probe/Solar Eclipse invited attendees to build a 1/30th scale model of the spacecraft probe and learn about Parker Solar Probe, the mission to “touch the Sun”, and the upcoming total solar eclipse in the continental United States.
STEM Night remains very popular in the Brackett community, and over 350 people attended. A representative from the MRWA sums up the experience nicely with “We had a blast at the recent STEM night! Looking forward to participating again next year!”
Math Mornings, a Brackett tradition for over 15 years, are held every Friday morning from 7:20-8:00 am for students in grades three through five. Mr. Fraschetti, who serves as one of the leaders, shares that the goals of the Mornings are to “...stimulate interest and enthusiasm for mathematics through engaging and interactive lessons and reveal the utility of math and logic in everyday life.”
About five or six volunteer caregivers per grade lead the mornings, rotating the lessons between them. In contrast to Math Nights, the Mornings offer a 15-20 minute lesson delivered via Powerpoint followed by 15-20 minutes of time to work in teams and complete an activity on the material that was presented. Although they get the day started early, Mr. Fraschetti believes that the opportunity for additional social interaction and collaboration around math makes it worth it and hopes that more students from all three grades will join in the future.