The Applied Design, Skills and Technologies (ADST) curriculum encourages children to think, design and re-design.

Children are expected to evaluate their ability to successfully problem solve, as well as work effectively in a group.  This includes:

• Persevering when something doesn’t work and being flexible enough to try different ways of doing things  
• Working respectfully and constructively with others

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Prev

  1of8

  Next

   

Much thanks to Ms. Field and Ms. Coutts for facilitating our learning.

Prev

1of9

Next

Applied design, skills and technologies is a part of the K-12 curriculum.   ADST is more than robots or coding or building things.  It is a mindset that encourages curiosity and exploration.  Seen in roles from engineers to artists, they solve real-world design challenges by inventing and re-inventing.

We introduced the children to a variety of materials, tools and technologies in order to encourage creative and critical thinking through design.  They generated ideas, made a product, and solved problems in their design by incorporating new ideas.  

• Kinetic Sand- create castles using this material that feels like real sand and holds it shape
• Keva Blocks – create a structure by stacking wood planks using no glue or connectors
• Snap Curcuits – build a variety of circuits that do something like turn on a light or run a fan
• Crossy Roads – develop a set of logical steps to do something
• Chatter Pix – use oral language skills to create a picture that talks
• Marble works – create a structure that uses chain reactions to move a marble through chutes
• Bee Bots – program the little robot to move in many directions  (a pre-cursor to coding)
• Tinker Toys- build structures that move
• Lego – design and build unique structures
• WeDo robot – use hardware and a software to create a robot that completes a task

Imagine standing on the forest floor . . . 

Looking up through the understory

Looking past the thick canopy

To the emergent layer reaching the sky

Imagine walking through a rainforest . . .

We have been imagining what it would be like to walk through the rainforest.  We can describe what we would see as we walked along the forest floor and looked up toward the sky. 

The children have been working on communicating information orally.  We used our rainforest model as a framework to elicit ideas and provide organization for our thinking.  First, we practiced what we wanted to say.  Then, we rehearsed speaking in a loud, clear voice using appropriate pacing, grammar and vocabulary.   Finally, we recorded what we wanted to say.

Keep checking your child’s blogfolio to take a tour of the rainforest.