Tower Of Books Challenge Pdf

[Zee Palmer]

TheTower of Books Challenge is based on two core ideas: to widen students' reading choices and to provide a fresh and motivating way to keep track of what they read.

Students are given a reading list (I call these the "category lists") with numerous genres and categories of books they must read to meet the challenge.

Lots of different category lists are are included to help you suit the challenge to your students, as well as parent letters, a reader pledge and other activities to help with accountability, and even "Master Stacker" award certificates.

STEP 1: HOW MANY BOOKS? How many books do you want your students to read to complete the challenge? Choose a 20, 30, or 40 book challenge. Think about the age of your students and the time frame you have in mind.

STEP 2: WHICH LIST? Choose a category list. Students will read books that fit into each category on the list you choose. There are now 13 different lists, each one varying in genre, book type, and quirkiness, and each one comes in all three amounts (20, 30, and 40 books). And there's an editable category list too, in case you want to customize a list even more.

STEP 3: WHICH FORMAT? Choose a format for how students will keep track of the books they read. You can do the two-dimensional version or three-dimensional version, or there's even a "paper saver" version where everything's recorded onto one sheet of paper.

The challenge is built on two core ideas: to encourage students to read some different genres of books and authors they may not try otherwise, and to give them a fresh and motivating way to keep track of their reading.

ALL of this, in TWO full-color designs ("Retro Chevron" and "Bright Colors"), is included, as well as blackline versions. Step by step instructions, sample parent letters to explain the challenge, printable award certificates, title posters for bulletin board display, and accountability options are all included too. Includes a "Team Challenge" section, too!

In March 2021 I discovered Carly and Adam when an ad for their Heart of STEM Teacher Summit popped up on my social media. Peter H. Reynolds and Susan Verde were two of the keynote speakers, so I knew I had to attend, and promptly paid the registration fee. I am certainly glad I did as it was a fantastic virtual summit and it ultimately prompted me to join the Carly & Adam STEM Teachers Club.

One of the things I love about the Carly & Adam Teacher Club is the way in which they organize their STEM Challenges. For example, they bundle challenges by month, season, holiday, and read aloud. As a school librarian, I think it is important to tie my STEM challenges to books as it encourages my students to read books they may not have on their own. It was in their STEM Teacher Club library that I found the Sonia Sotomayor Turning Pages Read Aloud STEM Challenge.

Because my library media lessons are 45 minutes long, and 10-15 minutes are saved for book exchange, it took us three weeks to complete the challenge. Turning Pages: My Life Story is a longer picture book biography than some others, so it takes time to read and discuss it. The picture book is written by the tenacious U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and illustrated by the talented Lulu Delacre.

My school is very diverse, with approximately 50% of my students in the LatinX community. I think it is extremely important for my students to see themselves in books, as well as learn about people with different life experiences. As Ohio State University professor Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop said, books serve as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. The STEM challenges help my students internalize what they learned in the book.

For this Book Tower STEAM Challenge, kids will need to create a freestanding tower that is as tall as possible using only paper and paper clips. (Feel free to substitute other materials based on the resources you have available, or try out different materials to see how they might build their tower differently.) After building their tower, have them test it to see if it can hold five or more hardback books.

A. 10 points if your structure is holding 5 hardback books

B. 15 points if your structure is holding 8 or more hardback books

C. 10 points if your paper tower is 11 inches or shorter; 15 points if your paper tower is 12-21 inches; 20 points if your paper tower is 22 inches or more

D. Up to 20 points for how creatively your group uses the materials

E. Up to 20 points for how well your group works together

I actually had two different levels of this challenge for my own kids. The first level was simply to knock over the tower in the targe square. However, my kids quickly realized that they could just drive into it to knock it over, which is not what I was going for. That was totally fine though, because I congratulated them, then added further restrictions to make the challenge more difficult. As far as they knew, I planned it that way.

With my kids, I actually just explained the type of attachment I wanted them to build (basically a windshield wiper that lays horizontal.) Since my oldest had already participated in FIRST LEGO League last year, he knew exactly what I meant. For my younger kids, I both explained what I wanted and helped them get started by showing them how to place a gear next to the first gear to build at attachment that would rotate in that direction. Feel free to look at my solution for ideas if your kids are getting stuck!

The first step was to build an attachment using the gear at the front of the bot. Since the gear already rotates in the direction that we want out attachment to move, this is a fairly straightforward process, though kids might not see the connection immediately. The more they work on this style of attachments, the more naturally they will start to see solutions.

This is the code I wrote to solve the challenge. The trickiest part is getting the robot to the exact right location (lined up with the blue tape) angled exactly facing the tower. This probably took me like 20 slight adjustments to get it just right. Remember that your robot will need to move for different numbers of rotations since our squares are not in the exact same locations.

Here is where my robot landed after I fine-tuned the code to get it to the target square. Honestly, I would have liked it to be a little more centered, but this worked and perfection was not the goal.

We did a paper book tower experiment this week to see which shape and which height of paper would be the strongest. We really did make paper hold up books and my kids were AMAZED at how strong it was!

We folded paper into tubes shaped like squares, circles and triangles and taped them together. My kids wanted to know which of the different shapes would be strongest. You can try your own designs and shapes, too!

Then I decided to add another component and test the height as well. We made a set of the same shapes but half the height. We made two types of circle ones, tightly wrapped and loosely wrapped to see if that made a difference.

Other variations you could try: Test different paper types and a different weight of paper. Cardstock paper would probably work even better than regular paper. Try it with tissue paper or aluminum foil. Try other adhesives besides tape. Maybe glue would give it more strength?

We made four of each shape and size and then set a piece of paper on top of it. We tested the short and the tall ones at the same time, and placed books on them one at a time to see which would last the longest.

We started with the triangle shaped papers. These ones held 8 for the short papers and only 4 for the tall triangles. The squares lasted through 5 books with the tall papers and 7 with the short. The circles were definitely the strongest. The widely wrapped circles held 13 for the tall ones and 23 for the short ones. Our tight wrapped papers held 27 for the tall pieces and 24 for the short ones.

My kids did guess that the tightly wrapped ones would hold the most books, but I think they were completely surprised by exactly how many. They ran out of skinny books so they started getting bigger and heavier books as we went on. As soon as we finished, they asked if we could do it again!

I LOVE STEM ACTIVITIES! I am always trying to find a new challenge to give my kids (hence, this STEM tower challenge). Why I like STEM so much is because it makes kids think, evaluate, and try again. Not to mention, so many of the activities use simple items around the house. Kids are able to see many uses of everyday objects they encounter. They may not look at a straw the same way again.

On the site Teachers Are Terrific, I found the Bucket Tower challenge. It seemed like a fun idea. I decided to give it a try but made a few modifications. I decided to give each kid a set amount of each material. I did not want this to become a massive tape tower when they were done. Then I set out to explain the challenge to them.

Each child, or team, is to construct a STEM tower in which the bucket is not touching the surface. The tower must be able to hold at least ten pennies without collapsing. The champion is the tower that can withstand the most weight.

I did not give a time limit for this challenge, though you could. I knew this would not be an issue for my kids. I was more interested to see what they would come up with without the constraints of time than how fast they could do it.

I gave my son and daughter their own set of materials, and they began building their STEM towers. Very quickly, they each had a tower that was different from the other. My son had a tower that was going to be as big as he could get it. My daughter was building smaller and in a pyramid shape. It was quite evident which strategy was going to work.

My daughter remembered from past experiments that the pyramid shape is strong. Clearly, this was the case for this STEM tower challenge. It worked well for her. She also realized that a tall structure would not work the best because it would tip over more easily.

3a8082e126