**This Giveaway has ended. Check back for more giveaway fun!**
As promised, I have a fun treat for you! Another giveaway! I’m pleased to partner with Roylco, creators of all things fun and educational for your classroom! So here’s the part you’re waiting for… what can you win!? Drum roll please!
What: This Straws & Connectors set has a whopping 705 pieces (over triple what we played with) and retails for $60, available for purchase here. It’s recommended for ages 4-5+, which I think is appropriate.
How to Enter: Super easy! Here are the steps:
- Hop on over to the Roylco Blog. (Click here)
- Poke around and check out their craft ideas. (There’s so much fun stuff over there, I know!)
- Come back here to this blog and write me a comment telling me what Roylco craft you liked. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page to type your comment. If you’re not a WordPress member, please leave me your email address so I can contact you if you win! That’s it!
This giveaway ends 1 week from now, at midnight (PST) on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. **This giveaway has ended. Check back for more giveaway fun!**
What I think about the Roylco Straws & Connectors set: Way fun!! We played with the 230-piece set. It was a great amount for two of us to use. When I opened the box, it looked like this:
It wasn’t hard to separate the connectors. Once we pulled them all apart, here’s what we had to play (and learn) with:
At first, we didn’t use the directions, but we soon peeked at them to see hot to make more complex connections. The directions were fairly simple, easy to read, and gave us some good inspiration. Here are some of the creations we came up with (notice they get cooler as we continued to play with them):
The straws are roughly 9 inches long. They’re not very hard to connect, but they’ve got enough squeeze between the straw and connector that they stay connected pretty well.
This was our favorite creation: a 30 inch tall “castle” with corners and arches!
What can you learn: First of all, these are just plain fun. So no matter what kids learn, they’ll have a good time. Here are some ideas for incorporating learning into this activity:
- Identifying vertices and edges in 3D shapes
- Structural aspects of various shapes (Which shapes are strongest?)
- Spacial intelligence (How many cubes made up this castle? How many cylinders?)
- Volume! (What’s the volume of the cube? Of the castle?)
- Recreating historical buildings out
- Creating chemical compounds (H20, etc)
- And the list goes on!
**This giveaway has ended. Check back for more giveaway fun!**
How to Post a Comment:
A few readers have told me they struggled with finding the place to write a comment. There are a few ways readers will get to this page, so here’s how to post a comment (depending on how you got to this post).
If there are multiple posts on this page (you’re on the Squarehead Teachers home page or a search results page):
If you clicked on this post (and it’s the only one on the page), then scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page:
The Fine Print: Participation is optional. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase is necessary to participate. Only one entry per person. Available to US and Canada participants only. There will be one winner. Winner will be randomly selected. I will email the winner between Wednesday, Dec. 17-Thursday, Dec. 18. The winner will have 24 hours to respond and provide me with shipping information so I can mail them their prize! If the winner does not respond within 24 hours, the winner forfeits the prize and another winner will randomly be selected (in which case the new winner will be notified and the same terms apply). The winner will be announced on this blog once eligibility has been confirmed. I cannot guarantee the winner will receive their prize before Christmas, but I’ll try my best! This giveaway is sponsored by Squarehead Teachers and Roylco, and is not affiliated with WordPress or any other sponsor. If you have additional questions, please contact me! Good luck!
I recently found an article called 4 Lessons from K-12 Ed Tech Failures of 2014. (It’s good to hear that I’m not the only one who occasionally fails!). The educational use of technology evolves, grows and improves just as the technology itself. But growth does come with bumps and bruises. This was a quick easy read, but in case you’re crazy pressed for time, here are the four lessons shared in the article:
What’s on the horizon for K-12 education? The NMC Horizon Project has published the 2014 edition of their annual NMC Horizon Report to answer these questions for you! The NMC Horizon Project, established in 2002, is a comprehensive research venture that identifies and describes global, large-impact key trends, significant challenges, and emerging technologies in education. Below is an outline of the report. If you see something interesting, click on the links at the bottom to learn more!
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Squarehead Teachers 