Welcome to STEAM Park

• Review this lesson plan and choose what you need from the Teacher Support box.

• If necessary, pre-teach these related vocabulary words: rides, attractions.

• Consider the abilities and backgrounds of all your students and decide when and how to introduce and differentiate lesson content, activities, or concepts.

• Ask the students if they have ever been to an amusement park or a carnival.

• Discuss the things that you can see and do at an amusement park or carnival.

• Show the students the photo of the STEAM Park characters, and tell them that you are going to read a story about these characters who take care of a special place called STEAM Park.

• Read the following story aloud:

STEAM Park is a place where students and adults have great adventures. They play games, go on rides, watch interesting shows, and eat tasty foods. Parker, the park manager, wants all of the visitors to have a fun time. Making sure this special park is running well takes a lot of work. Fortunately, Parker has some good friends to help him.

Parker is very good at fixing the rides and building new attractions for the park guests. He often asks his close friends Ms. Engels and her grandson Arty for help. Arty has three friends who also like to help.

Ms. Engels is a kind person who likes to make sure everyone is safe. She loves to spend time with her grandson Arty and his friends.

Arty enjoys creating and performing. He and his friends have many interesting ideas for how to make STEAM Park beautiful and entertaining.

Arty’s friend Sienna is curious and likes to experiment with ways of making faster and more exciting rides in the park. And his friend Teresa collects materials to build machines for different purposes. She is great at problem-solving. Matt has a lot of energy and wants to be involved in every activity. Sometimes he tries to take over what others are doing, but his friends help him be part of the team.

• Hold Parker up to your ear and pretend he is telling you something.

• Tell the students that Parker needs their help. Explain that a terrible storm has knocked down all of the rides, games, and food stands in STEAM Park, and that Parker needs their help to rebuild it all. Ask the students if they are willing to help.

• Give the students one of the in-box building inspiration cards and ask them to build the model shown.

• The side with the green border shows an easier model and the side with the blue border shows a more difficult model.

Tip: Save time by pre-sorting the bricks for each model.

• Ask the students to take turns telling about the models they have built.

• Consider asking questions like:

  • What do you call the model you have built?
  • What do people do when they visit the place you have built?
  • What could you do to make it more fun for visitors?

• Ask the students to improve the places they have built or to add new places to the park. Encourage them to role-play with the figures.

• Consider asking questions like:

  • What is your favorite place in the park?
  • What could you add to give guests a better experience?

• Ask guiding questions to elicit students’ thinking and their decisions while ideating and building: What do you wonder about…? What do you notice…?

Observation Checklist

• Review the learning objectives and success criteria addressed in this lesson (Teacher Support box).

• Share specific student responses and behaviors at different levels of mastery.

• Use the following checklist to observe students’ progress:

  • Students can ask questions or make observations in order to improve the places they have built or to create a new place for the amusement park.
  • Students can fully describe the improvements they have made to their model or the new model they have created.
  • With prompting and support, students can add additional details to their descriptions of their model.