Kindergarten teachers learn to educate with Legos
Kindergarten teachers from across southern Arkansas came together for an unconventional form of professional development: Legos.
The South Central Service Cooperative, which works to provide professional development opportunities for teachers of all age groups, received an Arkansas Better Chance Innovation grant. The grant was around $33,000 and is focused on integrating science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) for early childhood programs.
The Co-Op sent specialists Zephonia Avant and JoAnn Womack to a convention in Orlando in January to look for something new they could offer the teachers who are part of the Co-Op. Although funding wasn’t available at the time, Avant said they came back with a number of ideas which included the Kibo Robotics Kit and Lego training. Thus, they pursued the grant.
Since receiving the grant, the Co-Op has provided training in Kibo Robotics to teach their kindergarteners the basics of coding. The robotic kits – that the Co-Op got for its kindergarten teachers to use in the classroom – included wheels, motors, light output and a variety of sensors. It creates a robot that students can use to scan barcodes on blocks that give the robots certain commands. The students can then put pencils in the robot to draw based on their commands or just let it go.
The kit is designed to teach students the basics of coding by showing them how robots can follow certain commands and patterns that get programmed into them.
“Kibo play encourages engineering design thinking and creativity and problem-solving,” Avant said. “The robot is a fun way for children to explore senses and use tools to find solutions to problems.”
The most recent training to come from this grant was on Tuesday when the teachers went through a Lego training program with two kits called “STEAM Park” and “Building Me Emotions.” Teachers also got to take one of each kit back to their classrooms.
The training was focused on communication and engineering. These kits are geared toward teaching children through play to explore gears, pulleys, ramps and levers. Meanwhile, the “Build Me Emotions” kit is about teacher students through social-emotional learning. Part of the emphasis in the training was about helping to create a wholistic child who is fully developed in their emotional skills as well as their educational skills.
“I believe that Legos can be used to improve all the domains,” Renee Noack, development learning specialist, said. “Whether it’s gross motor skills, fine motor – manipulating the Legos – social skills and communication skills – discussing what
you’re creating – cognition with talking about colors and shapes. It can even be through problem solving or counseling to help them with their social/ emotional skills. I think it’s unlimited in how it can be used.”
Along with the “STEAM Park” and “Building Me Emotions” kits for each classroom, the Co-Op also bought a Rigamaji Large Building
kit that will be on tour around the schools. It is focused on encouraging students to think three-dimensionally and build on a large scale.
Teachers from Norphlet, Strong, El Dorado and Parkers Chapel attended the training for both programs.
“I’m really hoping that this is going to let your imagination go,” Tara
Morgan, a kindergarten teacher at Parkers Chapel, said. “I just feel like kids these days are programmed not to think outside the box anymore and I’m excited to see how creative they can be.”
In addition to the two kits, the Co-Op was able to buy children’s books that are focused on encouraging creativity and problem solving such as “Beautiful
Oops” by Barney Saltzberg, “What Do You Do With an Idea?” and “What Do You Do With a Problem” by Kobi Yamada.
“All of the new materials purchased provide the opportunities for children to experiment and investigate, using logical thinking and reasoning while aligning well to Arkansas’s Child Development Early Learning Standards,”
Avant said. “Elements of the design process come quite naturally to children at this age when they are involved in such play.”
Michael Shine may be reached at 870-8626611 or mshine@eldoradonews.com. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.