SPIKE™ Essential

Snack Stand

Oh, no! Daniel dropped his snack. Help him get a new one from the snack stand.

30-45 min.
Beginner
Grades 1-2
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Prepare

  • Review the Snack Stand lesson in the LEGO® Education SPIKE App.
  • If necessary, pre-teach these related vocabulary words: effective, serve, and tool.
  • Consider the abilities and backgrounds of all your students. Differentiate the lesson to make it accessible to everyone. See the Differentiation section below for suggestions.
  • If time allows, plan and facilitate the math extension. See the Extension section below for more information.

Engage

(Whole Class, 5 Minutes)

  • Facilitate a quick discussion about the importance of testing to make sure an object works as it should.
    • Talk with your students about objects that need to work properly when they're eating.
    • Ask questions, like: How could you test to make sure a table is flat so that your food won’t roll off? If the table isn’t flat, what could you do to fix it?
  • Introduce your students to the story’s main characters and the first challenge: serving another snack to Daniel.
  • Distribute a brick set and a device to each group.

Explore

(Small Groups, 30 Minutes)

  • Have your students use the LEGO® Education SPIKE App to guide them through their first challenge:
    • Create and test the program that serves another snack to Daniel when he shows his blue ticket to the Color Sensor.
  • Have your students iterate and test their models to complete the next two challenges in the app:
    • Change the program to improve the snack stand.
    • Upgrade the snack stand for Daniel. Make sure he can still reach his snack.
  • You can find coding and building support in the Tips section below.

Explain

(Whole Class, 5 Minutes)

  • Gather your students together to reflect on their completed challenges.
  • Ask questions, like: What did you do to upgrade the snack stand? How did you make sure that Daniel could still get his snack from the upgraded snack stand?

Elaborate

(Whole Class, 5 Minutes)

  • Prompt your students to discuss and reflect on the importance of testing a prototype to ensure that it works as intended.
  • Ask questions, like: Why is it important to test and make sure your prototype works as you want it to? What happens when your upgraded prototype fails and doesn’t work as you wanted?
  • Have your students clean up their workstations.

Evaluate

(Ongoing Throughout the Lesson)

  • Ask guiding questions to encourage your students to “think aloud” and explain their thought processes and reasoning in the decisions they've made while building and programming.

Observation Checklist

  • Measure your students’ proficiency in testing an upgraded prototype to ensure that it works as intended.
  • Create a scale that matches your needs. For example:
    1. Needs additional support
    2. Can work independently
    3. Can teach others

Self-Assessment

  • Have each student choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.
    • Yellow: I think I can test an upgraded prototype to make sure it does what I want it to.
    • Blue: I can test an upgraded prototype to make sure it does what I want it to.
    • Green: I can test an upgraded prototype to make sure it does what I want it to, and I can help a friend do it too.

Peer-Feedback

  • In their small groups, have your students discuss their experiences working together.
  • Encourage them to use statements like these:
    • I liked it when you…
    • I'd like to hear more about how you…

Tips

Coding Tip

  • After your students complete their first challenge, they'll be provided with three Inspiration Coding Blocks to help them modify their programs.
  • The Inspiration Coding Blocks are intended to spark their imaginations as they experiment to find their own solutions.
Gecko U2L4_ICB_1 - en
Gecko U2L4_ICB_1 - en
Gecko U2L4_ICB_2 - en
Gecko U2L4_ICB_3 - en

Model Tip

  • After your students complete their second challenge, they’ll be provided with three Inspiration Images and an open-ended prompt for improving their models.
  • The Inspiration Images are to help spark their imaginations as they experiment and change their models.
U2L4_inspiration_img_1.png
U2L4_inspiration_img_1.png
U2L4_inspiration_img_2.png
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There aren't any building instructions for this challenge.

Differentiation

Simplify this lesson by:

  • Shortening the lesson to only include the first challenge
  • Selecting one Inspiration Image to help your students change their models

Increase the difficulty by:

  • Adding other colors for the Color Sensor to react to
  • Adding more items to the menu for Daniel to order and eat

Extension

  • Have your students use the collected data from the snack stand to create a bar graph on paper or using different manipulatives. Guide your students in a discussion about which color was used the most, least, etc.

If facilitated, this will extend beyond the 45-minute lesson.

Math: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.D.10

Teacher Support

Students will:

  • Practice testing prototypes to ensure that they meet a need
  • Modify and remix a solution
  • Practice helping a story character
  • Describe key ideas or details from a text

(one for every two students)

  • LEGO® Education SPIKE Essential Set
  • Device with the LEGO® Education SPIKE App installed
  • CSTA 1A-AP-11
  • NGSS K-2 ETS 1-3
  • ISTE 1.4c
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.2

Math Extension

  • CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.D.10

Student Material

Student Worksheet

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